he names of Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Samuel, David, &c., represent stages of advance along the line
of a chosen people; and later on it appears also that upon the chosen
people centres a hope for all nations, and a purpose is discovered in
universal history. The special {221} intellectual qualities of various
races or civilizations, as of Egypt and Tyre, are recognized by some of
the prophets, and recognized as part of a divine purpose for the
world[1]. The Bible then is the book of development; it looks forward,
not backward. But it is also true that all this development is
represented as having been (we may say) a second-best thing. It has
not been according to God's first purpose. There has been a great and
continual hindrance, which has consisted in a persistent rebellion or
sin on man's part against God; and this again has had its root in a
certain perversion of the heart of mankind which is regarded as
approximately universal. If we now take into account again the first
three chapters of Genesis (which, however, have left much less trace
than is commonly supposed in the Old Testament as a whole[2]) we find
that they describe an original act of rebellion on the part of the
first human pair, which is there spoken of as at least entailing
external consequences of a penal sort upon their descendants--that is
death, pain, and the loss of Paradise; and that later, especially in
the teaching of St. Paul, the universal moral flaw in human nature
(original sin) is also represented as having its source in this initial
act of rebellion.

Sin is therefore, according to our Christian scriptures, something
unnatural to man: the violation of his nature by his rebellion; and it
is a continual element of deterioration. But the idea that man was
created perfect, i.e. so as not to need development, is not suggested.
No doubt theologians, from the age of Augustine down to recent times,
have done something more than suggest it. Thus Robert South supposes
that 'an Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the
rudiments of Paradise'; and Milton implanted the idea in the {222}
imagination of Englishmen; but it is in no way suggested by the Bible,
and was expressly repudiated by the earliest Christian theologians in
east and west. Thus, in answer to the question whether Adam was formed
perfect or imperfect, Clement of Alexandria replied, 'They shall learn
from us that he was not perfect in respect of his creation, but