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structures. But if it is out of the question to eliminate creative energy working teleologically in order to the origination of life, if, on the contrary, this energy is manifestly an indispensable condition, unless we are to assume causeless phenomena, and thus to violate the law of causality, so also the withdrawal of God from the world which is to be conserved is an untenable notion. Else, after creation a self-dependent form of being resembling God's (divine self-existence) must have been conferred on the world. But that the idea of divine conservation leaves room for new creative manifestations of God, has been shown above.

2. The hypotheses which, in the supposed interest of the world's unity and its absolute interconnection, seek by deriving the human race from the animal world to dispense with a new creative act of God, whether they admit a single first human pair or not, are based on a denial of the essential distinction between rational beings and nature, and degrade it to a mere vanishing quantity. For if man is a mere product of nature, then so long as the law of causality holds good he can only be a natural being, respecting which there can be no question of intensively infinite worth, morality, and religion. Physical foreshadowings of the moral especially are not to be denied in Nature. But any notion of that which alone makes the moral moral, of the absoluteness of duty and the worth of goodness, in opposition to everything merely physical, nature has not, but only reason. And it is just the same with religion. Therefore, only at the price of denying man's rational character can the nature of man be derived from nature alone. For his origination a new creative act of God is essential, not one disturbing the world's unity, but in a teleological respect its finish and crown; whereas the mechanical, atheistic evolution-theory dissolves into an endless, fortuitous plurality,-a parody on the name of Monism which it so fondly assumes. And of the latter charge even its admission of a single first human pair cannot acquit it, so long as for the sake of the world's unity it maintains man's essential identity with nature, and leaves no room for absolute teleology, that highest and firmest bond of the world's unity,-but at most and reluctantly one of a limited, evanescent nature. But even the supposition that mankind consists not simply of different races, but of

'So J. R. Meyer, Huxley, and others; see Zöckler, p. 729.

different species (derive these, as we may, from creation or otherwise), and that therefore different progenitors must be assumed for them, is untenable. That which is characteristic of man is to be sought pre-eminently in reason. But reason has no plural. There can be no different " species" of reason. Chalybæus says rightly: "The supposition of different human species (instead of races with essentially the same destination for rational ends) would be a transformation of men into a physical order." It is thus evident that both the theories mentioned in opposition to the Biblical view have their roots in the same error-the denial of the rational essence of human nature. If one theory obscures, nay, subverts man's characteristic nature by a one-sided assertion of the continuity of the world, whose final issue is the obliteration of distinctions, the essential identification of all things, whether in materialistic or pantheistic fashion, the other in turn denies man's rational character by a one-sided assertion of the discontinuity of mankind supposed to be severed into different species. The truth lies in the position that mankind is a unity in itself, while the kingdom of man is essentially different from the kingdom of nature."

3. This being conceded, and the derivation of man from nature renounced, as well as the notion that he is a being merely physical in kind and parting into different species, it is thereby also allowed that, in order to his origination, a new act different from the creation of nature as such is requisite, for which indeed receptiveness must be presupposed in nature, but without its productive force being capable of being a substitute for this act. But in this case the Biblical doctrine decisively commends itself, of the human race, which did not exist always, being first created by God in a single' pair; for several pairs would be several creative beginnings, a

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1 Quatrefages maintains that as yet not a single case of transmutation of one species into another has been scientifically established. Zöckler, p. 736 f. But of course what constitutes species and variety is not to be defined everywhere in the same sense as between man and mere natural beings.

* Wissenschaftslehre, p. 327 ff.

3 Even Alex. v. Humboldt, for the reasons given, supposes one human species, although he is unwilling to assert the derivation of all from one original pair.

4 The singleness of the first pair, admitted even by Darwinians, is maintained by numerous other authorities. Thus by Lyell, Huxley, Wallace, and others; cf. Zöckler, II. 774.

superfluous miracle, after one pair with a destination for reproduction had been created. One pair being created, the human species is created, and all that is then needed in one respect is conservation. The same consequence follows from our generic consciousness. Springing from one pair, mankind forms one family and one interdependent unity more completely than if it sprang from several independent creative beginnings. Certain as it is that the spiritual aspect in man is the chief matter, still the fraternal tie is far stronger when by reason of common descent men have one history. Mere spiritual unity without actual consanguinity has less binding force than both together. In any other case they would have no single course of historical development; nay, even their type must be diverse in character; otherwise no reason can be given why, instead of the type also of the others beginning to be realized with the first pair, a new creative commencement, absolutely unconnected with the first pair, was requisite. As matter of fact, the science of history, as well as comparative philology, takes as its starting-point the thought of the single genealogical connection of our race, and in doing so follows a genuine human instinct, which even now is not without its reward; for the history of nations and religions finds among different nations kindred traditions. Linguistic research is also constantly adding to the genealogical stem of languages.

4. Respecting the origination of separate individuals within the genus created there are three theories, Pre-existentianism, Traducianism, Creationism. No one of these alone suffices.

Pre-existentianism makes human souls to have been created eternally or since the beginning of the world. After a period of disembodied existence they are put into human bodies by way of punishment for sin, or by way of discipline. But this would not correspond with our generic consciousness, or with the perfect inter-relationship of the race. The body would be regarded as a mere external appendage of the spirit. And why need the souls be supposed to have waited so long for their body, whether the latter be a punishment or means of improvement? But if the souls are first created upon generation, this passes over into Creationism. Instead, therefore, of indulging in mythical dreams about conditions and acts of a pre-existent state, Traducianism commends itself to us, in

so far as it seeks to plant us on the firm ground of reality and analogy with all living beings. It supposes that with generation new souls develope themselves from Adam's soul like shoots (traduces) from a tree. Through generation, Rudolph Wagner is of opinion, a division of the soul-substance takes place, whereas others prefer the figure of one combustible matter or light kindled by another. But this is only in real keeping with Materialism. Hence even Augustine, although his doctrine of original sin must have gravitated in this direction, carefully guarded himself from lending countenance to Traducianism. The theory is also incompatible with the idea of free personality. In it we retain only the continuity of the species, reach no firm, deep discrimination of personal individuals, mankind being for the most part regarded as an identical mass. According to Creationism, the generation of the body is the occasion to God, in harmony with the principle of Concursus, for the creation of the soul. Received from Him on the fortieth day, the soul unites itself with the body. In this case we should have the body preexisting before the soul, and the race would in no sense co-operate in originating new souls. Here, too, body and soul would be external to each other, as in Pre-existentianism, and the mutual interconnection of men would be merely in a corporeal respect. This and the operation of the race are only secured by God's activity being regarded as one that acts through the power of the race and of individuals. If Creationism still acknowledges a sin of the race, its principle must lie altogether in the body.

5. Each one of these theories represents one aspect of the whole truth,-Traducianism generic consciousness, Pre-existentianism self-consciousness or the interest of the personality as a separate eternal divine thought (as Holy Scripture does in its doctrine of election 1), Creationism God-consciousness. Nothing but the union of these three elements is sufficient. But the union must not be so conceived as if there were a mechanical division of the process between God, the genus, and the element of personality. We must hold first: the entire individual, so far as he contains no new element, nothing not already constituted in previous stages, is as to his entire nature a product of the genus present and operative in the parents, as well as a product of God's conserving power. Secondly: so

1 As Schöberlein justly insists.

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far as the individual contains new elements, we have to go back from parental causality and conservation to a creative act of God, but one which, while really constituting new elements, is at the same time a conserving of the eternal world-idea, a continuance or carrying forward of the eternal idea of our race as an organism of many members. Thirdly: in this divine world - thought the particular individuals, as regards their idea, are constituted separate essential members. This idea of theirs in God (and this is the truth in the Pre-existencetheory), may be viewed as striving from the first after realization through its appropriate media, i.e. in their succession and order in time. Just so, in the eternal idea of these particular individuals lies their affinity with the generic idea, as well as their realization through the medium of the representatives of the genus-the parents; as on the other hand it lies in the idea of the race not simply to require identical repetitions of individuals, but to be receptive of new individualities destined for freedom, and therefore receptive of divine activity introducing new members into the circle of humanity. The eternal idea not merely of the genus in general, but also of particular personalities, is not Nothing, not blank thought, but has already initial reality in the eternal, creative principle-the Logos and initial temporal reality in the first human pair.

Observation. Some would ascribe to man an original power of self-determination; but God would then be made a passive womb, whence individuals are born spontaneously. No individual, before he exists, can contribute to his own existence. He himself comes into being through the interaction of the divine agency and that of the genus, but in such a way that both are determined by the eternal, divine idea of the individual as a free personal being. To explain the origination of impersonal creatures, the combined supposition of God's conserving agency and of the genus is sufficient. But man is above nature, not a mere continuation of the life of the genus. By his very idea he must be eternally conceived by God as a relative totality, of course in union with the whole. This is also borne out by the Mosaic cosmogony, which for man's origination lays down a new beginning, a distinct prior conception of him, and a distinct act carrying the conception into effect.'

1 Gen. i. 26, 27, ii. 7.

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