Rome? But
Greece died of premature old age, and Rome of rottenness begotten
of sin. But each of them, you will say, left a priceless heritage to
the immortal race. But if Greece and Rome and a host of older
nations, of which History has often forgotten the very name, have
failed and died, can anything but ultimate failure await the race?
Is human history to prove a story told by an idiot, or does it
"signify" something? Is the great march of humanity, which Carlyle
so vividly depicts, "from the inane to the inane, or from God to
God?"

This is the sphinx question put to every thinking man, and on his
answer hangs his life. For according to that answer, he will either
flinch and turn back, or expend every drop of blood and grain of
power in urging on the march.

To this question the Bible gives a clear and emphatic answer. "God
created man in his own image," and then, as if men might refuse to
believe so astounding a statement, it is repeated, "in the image of
God created he him." When, and by what mode or process, man was
created we are not told. His origin is condensed almost into a line,
his present and future occupy all the rest of the book. Whence we
came is important only in so far as it teaches us humility and yet
assures us that we may be Godlike because we are His handiwork and
children, "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ of a heavenly
inheritance."

Now has Science any answer to this vital question? Perhaps. But this
much is certain; it can foretell the future only from the past. Its
answer to the question _whither_ must be an inference from its
knowledge as to _whence_ we have come. The Bible looks mainly at the
present and future; Science must at least begin with the study of
the past. The deciphering of man's past history is the great aim of
Biology, and ultimately of all Science. For the question of Man's
past is only a part of a greater question, the origin of all living
species.

We may say broadly that concerning the origin of species two
theories, and only two, seem possible. The first theory is that
every species is the result of an act of immediate creation. And
every true species, however slightly it may differ from its nearest
relative, represents such a creative act, and once created is
practically unchangeable. This is the theory of immutability of
species. According to the second theory all higher, probably all
present existing, species are only mediately the result of a
creative