ns, carried away in triumph his young comrade
from a crowd of astonished dogs, as from a savage who delights to torture
his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without
remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by
the grossest superstitions." We have but to add:--if only the coming forth
from the creative hand of God, the creation in his own image, the communion
with Him and being a child of His, are preserved. And that all this can be
preserved, even when adopting descent and evolution, we have seen from
repeated considerations.

But we have to draw still another conclusion from the difference between
the two accounts of creation. If the succession, in which the inhabitants
of the earth appear in the first account, is so entirely different from
that in the second, as it evidently is, we have necessarily either to give
up the historical reality of the one or of the other account, or of both,
or to suppose that the creation of the inhabitants of the earth took place
in a way and manner which makes it possible to perceive a _real_ connection
of the succession in the first account, _as well as_ in that of the second,
with the real processes of creation. Now we do not at all intend to argue
with those who choose the first part of the dilemma; we ourselves join with
them, and believe that salvation does {320} not depend upon the objective
reality of that succession, nor the possession of salvation on the faith of
such reality. But we leave to the consideration of those who, in their
religious convictions, think themselves bound to the objective reality of
both accounts, the following thoughts: If not only ideal depth, but also a
connection with the empirical and historical reality of the process of
creation, is to be assigned to the succession of the first account as well
as to that of the second, it is only possible by assuming a
descent--namely, that man, _e.g._, may be called in one sense the first of
creatures, inasmuch as with the first organism that was already given which
was afterwards developed into man, and inasmuch as all which was otherwise
created and developed as aspecial species, was only present on account of
that aim; and that man in another, in the merely empirico-historical sense,
is still also the last of creatures. Thus, then, the advocates of descent
would find themselves in the unaccustomed position, equally surprising to
friend and foe, of being in a