g that is not a bird; that no transition
between the ungulates and the carnivora is possible; that the
_proboscideae_ are not a final but a transitory type, dying out
gradually--our elephants and similar forms will disappear as the
mastodon did.

But I admit this is all mere speculation, in which I ask no one to
follow me.

On one important point only is there a difference; and if the text is
ever proved wrong on that, it must be given up. But it is here that all
scientific knowledge fails, in _any way whatever,_ to touch the sacred
text. There _is_ an unique and exceptional account of one "special
creation." A man "Adam" is described as having been actually created,
not born as an ultimately modified descendant of ancestors originally
far removed from himself. That is not to be denied; not only was his
bodily form specially created (conformably to the _type_ created in
Genesis i. 26), but a special spiritual and higher life was
imparted--for I believe that no one disputes this as the meaning of the
expression, "breathed into his nostrils the _breath of lives,_ and man
became a living soul."

It must be noted again--although I have before alluded to this in some
detail--that it is not impossible that, pursuant to the general command
"Let us make man," there _may_ have been other human creations, perhaps
not endowed with the higher life of Adam. If it is found difficult to
realize this because the _image of God_ is connected (from the very
first) with the design of Man's life-form, still it is to be remembered
as an undeniable fact, that the form, though one assumed by God Himself
in the Incarnation, _is connected_ in structure and function with the
general animal (Mammalian) type, and that even the Adamic or spiritually
endowed man _may_, by neglecting the higher and giving way to the lower
nature, develop much of the purely bestial in himself. So that the bare
possibility of a pre-Adamite and imperfect man cannot be _a priori_
denied. More than that it is not necessary to say. Nor is it necessary
that any origin of man should be limited to six or eight thousand years
back. If the state of the text is such that a perfect chronology is
possible,[1] then all that the Bible goes back to chronologically is the
particular man Adam. And it is quite impossible that any scientific or
historical contradiction can arise therefrom.

[Footnote 1: It should be borne in mind that just as Revelation is often
absolutely silent o