t man _is_ a soul, a spiritual being.

_A._ Good.

_B._ Well, then; answer me this: Were the men whose remains are now
being discovered, of a spiritual nature, and endowed with minds? Might
they not rather have been mere mammals, shaped indeed in the same
external mould as that in which the Creator intended, when the time
should come, to form his masterpiece; but not as yet tenanted by that
divine nature which would have entitled him to rank with the race
existing now?

_A._ Such questions it is hardly the province of geology to solve. But
it may fairly be asked, What right have we to suppose that beings ever
existed who were men only in shape, but who were destitute of the
spiritual nature? Does the Bible allow us any margin on which to base
such a belief? Do the sacred writers mention the creation of two human
races, one endowed with merely an animal nature, the other possessing a
spiritual nature?

_B._ Scripture does so in passages which I shall point out presently.
But first, concede to me this one point, admitted by many theologians
already, that in the first and second chapters of Scripture, the term
'day' has an ambiguous meaning--that the days were vast geological eras.

_A._ Granted.

_B._ The first human creation spoken of by Moses is that mentioned in
Gen. i. 27, where, immediately after recording the creation of the
inferior animals, it is said that 'God created man in his own image,'
etc. Thus the visible and external creation has received its top and
climax: the animals have found a master. After that, we are told that
'the evening and the morning were the sixth day.' Then the second
chapter is opened, and the seventh day is described as forming a vast
interval of rest.

_A._ All true.

_B._ Now look at the seventh verse of this second chapter. The words
are: 'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living
soul.' Now I regard this passage as referring to a creation quite
distinct from that of the first chapter.

_A._ Theologians have been in the habit of considering the two passages
as descriptive of the same act.

_B._ I am aware of it. But by what right have they done so? Everywhere
else in Genesis we find events recorded in chronological order, and
there is no reason why the historian should in this instance commit the
irregularity of passing from the end of the seventh day to the beginning
of the sixth: it