ion of God to give us a supernatural manifestation of the exterior
process of the creation of man. Paul himself gives us a hint not to follow
slavishly a literal interpretation, when he says, in Romans V, "as by one
man sin entered into the world and death by sin," and calls this man Adam,
although he knows that according to the {342} Biblical relation, Eve was
the one who was first seduced, and although he expressly points out and
makes use of this priority of the sin of Eve in another connection, and for
another reason.

Finally, we may here also take into consideration the contradictions which
have come up by reason of more recent investigations, in reference to the
_prehistoric conditions of man_, and which, especially in England, have
been designated as the contradiction between the _elevation theory_ and the
_depravation theory_.

In general, this contradiction is looked upon as if a conception of the
primitive history of man, remaining conformable to the Bible, could only be
brought into harmony with a depravation theory, and not with an elevation
theory; but certainly without reason.

The Biblical and Christian conception of the primitive history of man does
not at all demand the conception of a gradual sinking down of mankind from
a supernatural height--of a gradual depravation of our species--which many
representations seem to assume. For, according to it, the fall of man had
already taken place with the first pair of mankind; they were driven from
Paradise, to long hard labor and development; and Paradise was taken from
earth. Even the paradisaical condition, with its short duration, was
deficient in all the various gifts of life which are a product of human
inventive faculty and skill, and which can leave behind vestiges and
remains. But what the Holy Scripture relates or indicates of the
after-paradisaical primitive history of man, wholly corresponds to the idea
of a gradual development out of the more simple and rough, which is
demanded by the evolution theory in its {343} application to history. That,
even according to the Biblical conception, goodness and progress in outer
culture, sin and intellectual stagnation, are not identical, we see from
the fact, that by the Holy Scripture the most successful inventions of man
are not assigned to the more pious Sethites, but to the Titan-like,
rebellious Kainites. Likewise, the evolution theory does not at all require
a constant, general, and exclusive progress