ith what Science has up to this time proved.

And to this must be added that it is out of place for us to define what
is consistent or inconsistent with the dignity of man in the process or
method by which he was created to be what he is. His dignity consists in
his possession of the spiritual faculty, and not in the method by which
he became possessed of it. We cannot tell, we never can tell, and the
Bible never professes to tell, what powers or gifts are wrapped up in
matter itself, or in that living matter of which we are made. How
absolutely nothing we know of the mode by which any single soul is
created! The germ which is to become a man can be traced by the
physiologist through all the changes that it has to undergo before it
comes to life. Is the future soul wrapped up in it from the first, and
dormant till the hour of awakening comes? or is it given at some moment
in the development? We see in the infant how its powers expand, and we
know that the spiritual faculty, the very essence of its being, has a
development like the other faculties. It has in it the gift of speech,
and yet it cannot speak. Judgment, and taste, and power of thought;
self-sacrifice and unswerving truth; science and art, and spiritual
understanding, all may be there in abundant measure and yet may show no
sign. All this we know; and because it is common and well known we see
nothing inconsistent with the dignity of our nature in this concealment
of all that dignity, helpless and powerless, within the form of an
infant in arms. With this before us it is impossible to say that
anything which Science has yet proved, or ever has any chance of
proving, is inconsistent with the place given to man in Creation by the
teaching of the Bible.

In conclusion, we cannot find that Science, in teaching Evolution, has
yet asserted anything that is inconsistent with Revelation, unless we
assume that Revelation was intended not to teach spiritual truth only,
but physical truth also. Here, as in all similar cases, we find that the
writer of the Book of Genesis, like all the other writers in the Bible,
took nature as he saw it, and expressed his teaching in language
corresponding to what he saw. And the doctrine of Evolution, in so far
as it has been shown to be true, does but fill out in detail the
declaration that we are 'fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are
Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.' There is nothing in all
that Science has y