eyes oe eo Gees a a = as eis ec* of = Qn s C. —... 3) eee eee 18.1 30.0 Sacramento... neece eeee 16.3 16.0 Columbus:72.5' 9.52 on eee 15.6 7.0 Washington,Ds) Cone 15.4 8.0 New -York\City.-7 2 eee §.2 36.0 Boston ..3 ine ee ae 4.2 32.0 Paterson 3-7 ea es a oe 3.6 33.0 Bridgeport 2252) ie eae 1.9 32.0 Lowell SP een ran eee 17 34.0 Portland; 9M ese 72a ee 1.4 20.0 Rochester si sc: Maen? ee tae 1.2 24.0 Scrantont:.2sis ot oe ae ee 1.2 20.0 the foreign-born are least numerous that the highest murder rate occurs, while in prac- tically every instance ‘(the only exception being Cleveland) cities which contain a large proportion of foreign-born show a very low percentage of murders. This does not mean, however, that the children of foreigners, brought up in this country, ‘may not consti- tute a large proportion of the culprits. Many years of study in France have en- abled me to realize that in that country, at [ 24 ] RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. least, honesty and straightforward dealing are the dominant virtues instilled in the child, whereas here, money-making, success in business, ete., are often the main topics upon which they are mentally fed through the current conversation of their elders in their homes, rich or poor. The children of foreigners who happen to become criminals here illustrate the contrast between the two kinds of home influence which in great meas- ure decide a child’s future morality. They are those who cast off the moral scruples of their “old people.” There is no doubt, however, that too many foreign criminals are allowed to enter the country, attracted by its wealth. Judge Gary recommends great care in the selection of foreigners admitted to the United States. From personal experience, police records or authorities should form the basis of inquiry by our consuls. Indeed, the two greatest scoundrels it has been my misfortune to meet were recommended to me, one by a foreign Minister of the Interior, the other by the Mayor of a foreign city. Magnates are often importuned by politicians for recommenda- tions, which they sometimes grant without [ 25 ] NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. ascertaining the past of the individuals rec- ommended. That the moral decadence is gradually, though stealthily dragging down the whole country itself, was clearly expressed by one of our most distinguished clergymen, Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, when he remarked two years ago in the course of a sermon: “And I say unhesitatingly that the present tendency of our collective life is not up- ward . . . . and that while the durability of our American life and institutions is grounded in established character, it is a commodity that is not being turned out as it was two generations ago.’ Nor can any commonwealth endure, I might add, with depravity undermining its youth on all sides. A determined and virile effort is impera- tively necessary to turn the tide. How may this be accomplished ? President Coolidge, in an address before the biennial meeting of the Council of Con- gregational Churches, on October 20, 1925, urged that “religious influence alone ap- peared as the remedy for the evils that be- set society,’ and that he knew of “no politi- cal method of dealing with these difficulties.” [ 26 ] RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. He said, moreover, that “the utmost in- genuity on the part of the police powers will be substantially all wasted, in an effort to enforce the law, if there does not exist a strong and vigorous determination on the part of the people to observe the law. Such a determination cannot be produced by the Government. My opinion is that it is fur- nished by religion.” Indeed, “if faith is set aside, the foundations of our institutions fail, the citizen is deposed from the high estate which he holds as amenable to a universal conscience, society reverts to a system of class and caste, and the Government instead of being imposed by reason from within is imposed by force from without. Freedom and democracy would give way to despotism and slavery. I do not know of any adequate support for our form of government except that which comes from religion.” Unfortunately, ample evidence is available to show that religion is rapidly losing its hold upon the masses. Protestant churches of practically all denominations complain of poor attendance, and devise measures to turn the tide—which refuses to turn—while news- papers and magazines reflect the doubt of [27 ] NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. many concerning the solidity of the whole religious structure. As a prominent teacher of Princeton Seminary, Dr. McMachen, ex- pressed it recently, “there exist the most fundamental divergences in the religious world of the present.” That they will con- tinue under present conditions there can be no doubt—to the great detriment of religious influence in all directions. The underlying cause of these dissensions, as indicated by a comprehensive personal study of the subject in all its aspects, is the self evident vulnerability of the first three chapters of Genesis particularly, to destruc- tive and unanswerable ridicule. Mr. Darrow, in the Scopes trial, utilized this regrettable situation to the best advantage. It brought out clearly Mr. Bryan’s inability to meet his attacks otherwise than by mere reitera- tions of his conviction that the statements in Genesis were literally those of God. This, of course, only served to accentuate the an- tagonism of persons having atheistic or agnostic tendencies. Simultaneously it sealed adversely, through the details heralded by the newspapers of the entire country, the fate of the lukewarm millions who are ever [ 28 ] RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. ready to embrace a faith in which common sense will not have to be sacrificed. What the influence of Mr. Bryan’s atti- tude on scientists was can readily be im- agined. His writings denoted clearly (hav- ing declared, in fact, that “he neither knew nor cared anything about science’) that he had taken no pains to familiarize himself with modern knowledge concerning evolu- tion, most of which hardly dates back to the dawn of the present century. Basing his conclusions on obsolete beliefs, he used all his powers and influence to have evolution barred from tax-supported educational in- stitutions, as it is in Tennessee—a state of things which, according to Chancellor Hadley, of Washington University, of St. Louis, also threatens in from fifteen to twenty other states. Unfamiliar with modern progress on evolution, Mr. Bryan could not of course realize that he was starting a movement which, if successful, would eventually de- grade the United States to the lowest level of intellectuality among civilized nations. Indeed, most college bred men and women, and many others, know today that the “monkey ascent” of man (a myth, as we [ 29 ] NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. shall see) is but a tithe of the question of evolution, as a whole; and that the latter is one of the most productive divisions of our knowledge of agriculture, forestry, zoology, botany, medicine, bacteriology, sanitation, embryology, anatomy, physiology, biological chemistry, and other branches of biology normal and pathological, besides those con- nected directly with the development of the evolution of man and the lower animals,—ge- ology, paleontology and others. One can- not but wonder, in fact, how any legislature could pass a law so disastrous to the interests of public welfare and to the good name of the country at large. There is ground for kindly consideration, however, even in this direction. Indeed, fair play suggests a pointed question which should greatly mitigate criticism of any kind: Grant- ing that Genesis is a story which prompts mockery and thus cultivates enemies for all prevailing religions, Protestant, Roman Cath- olic and Jewish, what is there to replace it if it is eliminated on account of its defects? In answering this question we must bear in mind that we are dealing with the very foundation of religious thought, the identity [ 30 | RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. of God Himself and all His works, the uni- verse, our solar system, our earth and all the living things it carries, including man. We must realize that its omission would com- promise the whole Christian doctrine by relegating God to the status of the Spen- cerian “unknowable” and, in consequence, the spirituality of the Father and of the Son, of us all in fact, to the limbo of oblivion, leaving to mankind, if anything, not much more than an animal carcass with its evil in- stincts and a mind itself derived from noth- ing higher than an evolutionary product of this same animal. ‘This, indeed, is all that unfamiliarity with the modern drift of evolu- tion could evolve. With nothing to replace Genesis and the consequences of its loss, we can understand that the literalists—those who, unaware of the steady accumulation of learning which would save the day in God’s own time— feared the consequences of the sacrifice. It is because of this underlying thought which, I believe, is that of the literalists, that I urged in the Preface, the aband- onment of the term “fundamentalists” and “modernists.” Indeed, thanks to contribu- [ 31 | NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. tions of science during the experimental period which succeeded, about the beginning of this century, the observation period of the nineteenth century, the day has come, in my opinion, when it is possible to show that Genesis, freed of errors of translation through the light shed upon it by science, affords a solid foundation for both Testaments. As such it is capable, while far more elevat- ing than the prevailing interpretation, strewn as it is with translation errors as we shall see, of meeting the urgent needs of our period. Being derived directly from the Hebrew text, it conveys more accurately God’s own inspirations. It will meet all needs, therefore, that literalists have desired to insure, while enabling them to form, with their normal colleagues of all kinds, theolo- gians, scientists, and laymen (the bulk of our citizens, we must not forget) whose higher motives and aims are similar, a fight- ing force quite capable of causing right to prevail over wrong. Harmony, under such conditions, would enable us, it seems to me, to meet President Coolidge’s hopes in so far, at least, as vigor- ous and sustained effort could do so. [ 82 ] RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. The views submitted in the foregoing section, suggest that a cooperation of all churches and science could accomplish more than would desultory efforts of separate groups, as is now the case. It would un- doubtedly meet the approval of most scien- tists, and also of all religious communities, Christian and Jewish. As stated by Pro- fessor C. A. Ellwood, of the University of Missouri, in the 1924 opening address _be- fore the Yale Divinity School: “A new hope has come into the world—that science may unite with religion in the work of redeeming mankind.” In scientific circles the trend has long been towards religious philosophy and not against it. As expressed by Dr. L. T. More,! pro- fessor of physics at the University of Cincin- nati: ‘““The belief in God is the most general belief of all times. Most evolutionists indig- nantly deny atheism. And faith in God, whether it be the idol of the barbarian, the 1],, T. More: “The Dogma of Evolution,” Princeton, 1924, p. 356. ; [ 383 ] NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION, Inscrutable Power of Spencer and Fiske, or the Divine Spirit of the Christian or Jew, carries with it the conviction of a power which instituted natural law and self-consciousness of the human spirit.” The moral drift of religion and science is similar, even though the influence of science on morality has been a mooted point in the minds of many. In truth, those who in- criminate science are not familiar with its attitude in this respect nor with the mor- ality preached by scientists. ‘This, in fact, has been solidly established for many de- cades. Thus, thirty years ago, Dr. Charles Richet,! the eminent professor of physiology in the Paris Medical School, wrote: “‘On the whole, the morality taught by the church today is doubtless not very different from that taught by science. Whether it be up- held by science or religion, however, is only of historical interest. The essential point is that harmony and union between them prevail.” The trend towards cooperation has, in fact, been nurtured throughout centuries by scien- tists of the first order, among whom might 1 Charles Richet: Revue Scientifique, January 12, 1895. [ 34 ] RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. be mentioned Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Leibnitz, Lord Kelvin and Pasteur. In the United States the tendency towards religio-scientific harmony has shown steady growth on lines emphasizing their kindred aims. Thus, Professor K. EF. Mather, head of the department of geology of Harvard, wrote recently: “Men of religion seek right- eousness; finding it, they also find the truth. The further along the two avenues of in- vestigation the scientist and the theologian go, the closer together they discover them- selves to be. Already many of them are marching shoulder to shoulder in their en- deavor to combine a trained and reasoning mind with a faithful and loving heart in every human individual and thus to develop more perfectly to mankind the image of God.” Professor Patton, of the department of geology of Dartmouth College, also wrote: “I repeat, there is no difference be- tween what is vital in science and what is vital in religion. In fact, underneath, science is religion, and religion 7s science.” Becoming reverence and humility is a trait of scientists comparable only to that of [ 35 ] NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. theologians. Professor Metcalf, of Johns Hopkins University, has urged, for instance, that “we should not attempt to guide God’s self-revelation into channels of our own ignorant choosing, but rather, humbly and in a wholly teachable spirit, to seek His thought and Himself in nature, in history, in the vision of Himself He has given to men of old and is still giving to the humble minded today.” According to Dean J. G. Lipman, of the College of Agriculture of the State University of New Jersey, “the men of science, in carrying on their work in a spirit of reverence and humility, try to in- terpret the great book of knowledge in order that the paths of man . . . . and the ways of society may be in better keeping with the Divine purpose.” The attitude of the great majority of scientific men today towards religion is well exemplified in a joint statement signed by many such to emphasize their stand. In this list occur the names of Presidents Angell, of Yale; Burton, of the University of Chicago; Osborne, of the American Museum of Natural History; Poteat, of Wake For- rest College; and Merriam, of the Carnegie [ 36 ] RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. Institute; also of Professors Coulter, of the University of Chicago; Pupin, of Columbia; Birkhog, of Harvard; Campbell, of Lick Observatory; Conklin, of Princeton; Welch, of Johns Hopkins, all scientists. The state- ment referred to included the following: “It is a sublime conception of God which is furnished by science, and one wholly con- sonant with the highest ideal of religion, when it represents Him as revealing Himself through countless ages in the development of the earth as an abode for man and in the age-long inbreathing of life into its constitu- ent matter, culminating in man, with his spiritual nature and all his godlike powers.” These examples, to which many could be added, clearly indicate the presence among scientists of many whose attitude towards religion presages active and sincere support from their side if active cooperation with theologians could be brought about. Similar dependence could be placed upon many prominent members of the clergy, Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish. Many were included in the joint statement quoted above. Among them were Bishops Manning and Lawrence, of the Episcopal [ 37 ] NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. Church; McConnell, of the Methodist Epis- copal Church; Presidents Barbour, of the Rochester Theological Seminary and King, of the Oberlin Theological Seminary; also Professor Davis, of the Princeton Seminary. Bishop Manning declared in a sermon: ‘There is no reason why religion should have any suspicion or fear of science. ‘There is nothing in the Christian faith that conflicts with the scientific theory of evolution. ‘To many of us this hypothesis seems to make clearer both the glory of the Creator and the naturalness of His revelation of Himself in the incarnation.” Cardinal Haynes added his recognition of the services of science in a recent address. “Tonight,” said this distinguished prelate, “we offer a tribute of praise and gratitude to our scientists, to those devoted servants of truth who dedicate their lives to the advance- ment of human knowledge.” Again, “there is a further acknowledgment we must make. Science—real, not false science—discloses to its followers a lofty ideal worthy of the reyv- erence of every man. This ideal is truth— always, everywhere, at any cost. Without selfishness or passion or prejudice, at the [ 38 | RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. sacrifice of health and wealth, of fame and friendship and life itself; the real scientist worships at truth’s altar, realizing, as the church teaches, that there can be no vital conflict or contradiction, between the truth revealed to man by God in the natural order and that made manifest by Him in the super- natural.” Rabbi M. H. Harris, in a sermon, likewise deemed science an elucidative factor. “Far from removing God from the universe, evolu- tion has tremendously advanced our concep- tion of the eternal source behind all. In- deed, divinity becomes a much more exalted conception. A being who could promulgate laws and processes so far reaching, taking eons of time gradually to unfold, must indeed be a being of power and wisdom sublime.” Rabbi Jacob Kohn, preaching on “The God of Truth in Science and Religion,” held that “true religion, adoring the God of truth, will bid science godspeed in its mighty task of conquering nature through knowledge, for it is convinced that nothing that science can discover within nature can suppress the pas- sion of the human soul for the God of nature.” [ 39 ] NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. The three great faiths are thus represented among those who recognize the true role of science in its relation to religion. They surely provide the cohesive and uniform power which alone will insure success. Hope is about all that can be vouchsafed for the present. But any existing fear con- cerning the influence of science upon religion should be allayed. This I will attempt to do in the following chapters, adding a plea that if their tenets are convincing, every- thing be done to facilitate for us all, in view of the stupendous questions at stake and the responsibilities involved, compliance with Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians (I, 1:10) when they were separating into vari- ous sects: “TI beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you.” [ 40 ] CHAPTER II. THE MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATION OF BIBLICAL TEXT AS A CAUSE OF ATHEISM. I’ the Dayton trial Mr. Darrow was re- peatedly referred to as an atheist. But he merely represents a large proportion of unbelievers in this country who refuse to accept illogical tenets as truths. Abusive criticism of their attitude is as unfair as it is futile. Milton may have said of atheism: “Of such doctrine never was there school But the heart of the fool, And no man therein doctor but himself.” But the great poet was a poor physician. Far better is it to seek the underlying cause of trouble and remove it. In the present connection, it is a disorder accentuated and perpetuated by well-meaning but misled de- fenders of religion, the literalists. One can hardly deny that in the Dayton trial, Mr. Bryan (in all kindness to him now that he has passed away) was pitifully out- witted and vanquished. All he could do was to reiterate, we have seen, his literalistic [ 41 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. interpretation of the Biblical text, gaining not a point in the cross-examination. Nor did his defence, published after his death, at all mitigate his defeat. Yet, apparently sterile as it appeared, the picture afforded a salutary lesson: It illustrated the vulner- ability of the whole religious edifice—a vul- nerability which cannot but have greatly weakened the faith of many believers even though some had been religious virtually from the cradle, while turning aside multi- tudes of men and women, as well as many youthful readers who otherwise might have welcomed sound teachings. The destructive influence of the prevailing interpretation of the Biblical text—of Gene- sis in particular—may probably be best ex- emplified by the contradictions it imposes where, as in University circles, sound estab- lished data are, where possible, the accepted guides. The attendance at universities and colleges has become phenomenal. Within the walls of the great number of such in- stitutions, large and small, the bulk of the future intellectuality of the land is being moulded. Their students are taught to reason out all questions on the basis of truth, [ 42 ] MISINTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLICAL TEXT. while, if their powers of intuition are brought to bear, they are urged to poise them always on solid facts in order to avoid vagaries or misconceptions. Outside the university precincts the same students hear or read such statements as the following: Man was created in one day; God blew the breath of life into his nostrils; woman was made from Adam’s rib; man fell because Eve, tempted by a serpent, ate a forbidden fruit; Cain, even though there could have been only Adam and Eve left after he had killed Abel, took unto himself a wife and fled as a fugitive on earth, stat- ing that any one who would find him would slay him! Trained in deductive reasoning at their university or college, they learn outside also that Adam, the image of God, physical and spiritual, suddenly becomes such a scape- grace in Eden that he has to be thrown out and an angel placed at the door to keep him out; Eve, though built of Adam’s flesh and therefore ““Divine,” is still worse than Adam since she was his temptress, and is also ex- pelled. Cain, the eldest son of the “Divine” pair, not only becomes a murderer but a [ 43 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. fratricide! Are such teachings not calculated to inspire disrespect for the Bible to the point of sacrilege? In all fairness, one cannot but admit that in order to avoid becoming an atheist with such teachings as mental food, one must curb one’s mind to the acceptance as true of many statements which, in the light of all experi- ence, are obviously false. Inability to per- form such accommodating mental gymnastics accounts for the many avowed atheists and for the multitude of near atheists, men and women, who are practically indifferent to religious thought, and who are increasingly outnumbering the faithful. The results were well illustrated by Prof. J. A. Leuba,! of Bryn Mawr College, after he had questioned the students of nine prom- inent colleges. Out of one thousand answers received, ninety-seven per cent. of students between eighteen and twenty years gave the following religious status: Unbelief increased from fifteen per cent. in the first year stu- dents to forty or forty-five per cent. among the graduates. In his own words: “The 1J. A. Leuba: “Belief in God and Immortality,” 1922, p. 280. [ 44 ] MISINTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLICAL TEXT. students’ statistics show that young people enter ‘college possessed of the beliefs still accepted, more or less perfunctorily, in the average home of the land, and gradually abandon the cardinal Christian beliefs.” In truth, it is only a wonder that our students— the hundreds of thousands of men and women who will constitute the intellectual life of the near future—are not all atheists. Why not rid the Bible, as far as present knowledge will permit, of modes of interpre- tation justly calculated to fit the relatively childish and illiterate minds of primitive times, but which today only serve to obscure the true sense of the text and conceal its spiritual origin? Once rid of these repellant versions, the Biblical text will glow as a great white light and irresistibly draw to it not only previously professed atheists, but also the millions of individuals of both sexes and of all classes who today are quite indifferent to religious teachings. Worse than literal interpretations of the defective text is the prevailing tendency to consider Genesis, particularly its first few chapters, as consisting of myths or primi- tive folklore borrowed from Egyptian and [ 45 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. Babylonian crude and often apparently infan- tile conceptions. Such short-cut solutions are mere makeshifts which, in the light of pres- ent day knowledge and the miserable show- ing that all such derogatory negations have made in the past, particularly when great strides have been recorded in astronomy, electricity, radiology, bacteriology, steam and aerial navigation, etc., only serve to foster disbelief. The Assyrian, Chaldean, and other versions of creation have contributed the bulk of the Mosaic account of creation, but why regard them as mythical? When the evolutional psychology of the subject as a whole will have been fathomed to its depths, it may be found that ancient philosophers were wiser than ourselves, be- cause they, more than we, depended upon the inspiration of their spiritual soul—the one close link, as we shall see, between man and his Creator—for truths which today are as- serting themselves as such through another form of Divine inspiration and truth: science. As Schuré! said, referring to truth as the religious philosophers of the East and Greece, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, 1 Schuré: “Les Grands Initiés,” Paris, 1924, p. 11. [ 46 ] ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT. Pythagoras and other great stars of the past, saw it: “For them the soul was the only divine reality and the key to the universe. By focussing the will and developing its latent powers, they reached the flowing Light which they named God.” ERRORS OF TRANSLATION FROM THE HEBREW TEXT WHICH PERVERT THE MEANING OF GENESIS. In the present connection, the foundation so to say of the whole religious structure, the creation of man, will alone be considered. Not only are the errors submitted such as to modify our interpretation of the part of Genesis in which this particular subject occurs, but also many teachings in other parts of the Bible. These will eventually be introduced as needed, as they are very numerous. The importance of these errors cannot be overestimated, for when they will be elimin- ated, no obstacle will remain to perpetuate the prevailing’ dissensions among the protestant Christians. When this will have been ac- complished by the labors of many (for my own aim is only to blaze a trail, in the hope [ 47 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. that others more competent may take up the work) misleading and disruptive conclu- sions which distort the Divine intent, will cease to be the foundation of any one’s faith, and be replaced by teachings which, judg- ing from their nobler attributes and aims, are at least more worthy of a Divine source. Particularly must the newer interpretations submitted be sound, for they harmonize auto- matically with the teachings of modern science in directions which otherwise, with the current interpretations of some of the text as basis, would be impossible. The need of science to elucidate the mean- ing of the original text explains the in- ability of the many able Hebrew scholars who have published the various translations to grasp the true sense of the original text. The difficulties of their work were further increased by the fact that ancient Hebrew, in which the text was written, had a very limited vocabulary, one word serving to ex- press many meanings. An additional source of confusion was that, instead of being sep- arated, the words were run together in more or less extensive groups, as we shall see presently. [ 48 ] ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT. Especially misleading was the symbolic, figurative, or metaphorical nature of the language used to convey the original inter- pretation of the text to the primitive people for whom it was intended. The ancient Hebrews, following Egyptian customs, em- ployed three graded forms of speech: 1, the esoteric or sacerdotal, used mainly by priests and scholars in the temples, in which ques- tions of all sorts involving abstract reason- ing and philosophy were treated; 2, the col- loquial, employed by educated people, a very small proportion of the total population; and 38, the symbolic or metaphorical, pre- viously mentioned, calculated for the masses and illiterate, in which the resources now employed to make children understand, vz., simple examples based on daily experience, very commonplace and even puerile language, ete., were used. In the Garden of Eden, for instance, the trees, the serpent, the fruit, the angels with their flaming swords to guard the way to the tree of life, and other details are purely symbolic, in order to convey, not the creation of man and woman, as it has been taken to mean, but, as we shall see in the sixth chapter, the grave consequences of sin. e [ 49 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. It is this symbolic language which mis- leads the many who today accept the Biblical statements literally simply because they are believed to be ““God’s own words.” But they are not, as will now be shown by a few ex- amples in which the current English text will be compared with the translated He- brew text, leaving out signs for which there is no English equivalent and also duplica- tions. ‘The errors of translation will then also become evident. We will take as example first the all- important verse 2:7 in Genesis: ‘‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man be- came a living soul.” Translated from the Hebrew textually it reads: “Andformed God theman dust fromthe- ground andbreathed innostrilshis breath- spirit andbecame theman a soulspirit.” Why should the word “life” appear in our Bibles when it does not occur in the Hebrew text? In truth, pending more details, the Hebrew word rouwach, translated into the word “life” as we apply it to any living [ 50 ] ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT, thing, does not have this meaning at all. It means “spirit” or “wind,” or better, the Hebrew soulspirit. Again, the first time that the name “Adam” appears in the Bible is in Genesis 2:19: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them and whatsoever Adam called every living crea- ture that was the name thereof.” The Hebrew text, omitting as before all signs, 1s as follows: Andformed God from theground every beastofthefield andevery fowloftheheavens, and causedtocome unto theman what he- willeall tohim andall which willcall tohim theman souloflife, he namehim. Here again there is some error, for where is “Adam” in the Hebrew text? As the French express it, “he shines by his absence.” Now Adam does not mean a special individ- ual at all; in Hebrew adam means a man or human being. Why such perversions of the original text in the millions of Bibles extant? Conversely, if the original meaning in the whole process of analysis concerning the so- called ‘‘Fall,” is used, it will be found to [ 51 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. transform completely its prevailing inter- pretation and to eliminate all the vulgarity it is thought to imply. “Adam” as a man being eliminated, the identity of Eve becomes a quandary. That the rib creation of Adam’s supposed wife is likewise symbolic will be shown in a special chapter. ‘The verse which first con- tains the name “Eve” (Genesis 3: 20) states: **And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” The Hebrew text says, however: “Andcalled theman nameof hiswife life- giving for she was motherof allliving.” Once more is a common noun transformed into a single individual, ‘Eve,’ to create, with the fictitious individual “Adam,” a first human pair. But such a pair never existed, and the degrading role of “temptress” which the so-called “Eve” is made to play, does not in the least portray our “first mother.” The word eva or iévé or havva which means “life” in Hebrew, or “life-giving” in the spiritual sense, is the same “soulspirit” or “breath” with which, as we shall see, God endows man- kind as a whole, through the “mother,” the [ 52 ] ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT. link, as will be shown later, between God and humanity, through her offspring. Cain and Abel, the supposed sons of “Adam” and “Eve,” form part of a story intended to illustrate figuratively the in- flexible severity of the punishment which awaits those who, under any circumstance other than self defence—jealousy being the cause of Cain’s fratricide—commit murder. That the so-called “Fall” itself was not in- tended to mean the normal relations of man and wife in the production of offspring is further demonstrated by the fact that be- fore the so-called “Fall” is related (Genesis 2:28), God blessed man and woman and bid them to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.” These few salient examples, pending many others in succeeding chapters, will suffice to illustrate the erroneous character of the fundamental teachings of Genesis, as in- terpreted in the translations of the Bible at our disposal today. That these and other corrections I will submit, though dating back many years, were justified, was well shown by a very timely work which appeared recently by the Rev. [ 53 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. Dr. C. P. Fagnani,! Professor of Hebrew in the Union Theological Seminary of New York, who enumerates the large number of translational discrepancies and the incredible teachings to which they give rise. It con- firms the meaning of the Hebrew words I had deemed applicable in the illustrations submitted. The manner in which science sustains the newer interpretations of various parts of Genesis and explains them will be shown, and additional data submitted, in succeeding chapters. THE “MONKEY THEORY A MYTH, BUT EVOLUTION SOUND AND TAUGHT IN | THE BIBLE. To endow Biblical teachings with their legitimate value, knowledge of the modern trend of evolution is necessary. In truth, as stated by Professor M. N. Metcalf, of Ober- lin University, “there is no conflict, no least degree of conflict, between the Bible and the fact of evolution,” but the literalist, although he does not realize it, “is trying to shut 1¢C, P. Fagnani: “The Beginnings of History According to the Jews,” Published by A. and C. Boni, New York, 1925. [ 54 ] THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. men’s minds to God’s ever growing revela- tion of Himself to the human soul.” Evolution (from the Latin evolvere, to evolve or unroll), reduced to its simplest ex- pression, means but a process of development or unfolding. In plants and animals, it starts, beginning in the seed, grain, spore, cell, etc., progressive modifications of all parts of the developing organism, until the adult state is attained. A man who denies evolution, if consistent, should refuse to be- lieve that he has himself evolved from a fertilized ovum and developed from infancy to manhood, that an acorn can develop into an oak, that an apple seed, when planted, will cause the growth of an apple tree, etc. The progressive transformations of a cater- pillar into a chrysalis which in time becomes a butterfly, and also the familiar conversion of a tadpole into a frog, likewise illustrate what evolution means. Millions of other facts demonstrate that it is a commonplace function which manifests itself in every de- partment of nature. Everything that grows and in doing so be- comes more complex in order to reach its final state of development, is undergoing evo- [ 55 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. lution. Our solar system is an evolutionary product of what, at first, appears as a mist in space, a nebula. Our earth, a part of this solar system, itself undergoes evolution until it has reached its ultimate object, the pro- duction of life with man as its crowning effort—man, who unlike any other living being in nature, is endowed with a brain cap- able of grasping the idea of a Divinity and of the Infinite. The manner in which evolution occurs, the resources through which nature insures and perpetuates the process, constitute a special problem, and it is in this specific connection that various “theories” of evolution have been propounded. These theories did not begin with Darwin. Centuries before the Christian era, EKmped- ocles (about 450 B.c.), a Sicilian physician and physicist, taught what, in some particu- lars, science has since shown to be true, as we shall see in the fourth and fifth chapters, v1z., that a single element pervades all nature, the plants and animals, including man, rep- resenting but links in a continuous chain. No clearer explanation of the fundamental principle of evolution has been published [ 56 ] THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. since and the title of “father of the evolu- tion idea” bestowed upon Empedocles by some modern scientists is justified. Nor is the idea that man belongs to the animal kingdom modern, for this relation- ship dominated Egyptian lore long before the fourth Egyptian dynasty, which dates back to 4000 B.c. Even this is a relatively recent period, for it was during this dynasty that the typical Sphinx with its human head, its bull torso, its lion claws, and its folded eagle wings, typifying the animal nature of man, was dug out of the Egyptian sands, according to Schuré.t Darwin’s labors have sustained this solidarity or oneness of man with all other animals, already visualized, we have seen, by Empedocles. The first great modern evolutionist was the French naturalist de Lamarck (1744- 1829) whose views, as we shall see later, are more compatible with those of our day than were Darwin’s. He was a firm believer in the principle of use and disuse as a factor of development, and in the principle of Divine creation of primordial forms, though as a starting factor only, the forces of nature sup- 1 Schuré: “Les Grands Initiés,” Paris, 1924, p. 117. [ 57 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. plemented by the developmental influence of use doing the rest. Of the theories of the great naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the dominant one was that of natural selection. ‘This was based on his belief that variations or changes were gradually developed in living things, plants and animals, during the millions of years required for the evolutional process, and that through these variations, plants or animals could eventually become transformed into new species. As is well known, new varieties of flowers, fruit, etc., can be created artificially, that is to say by “artificial selec- tion.” Darwin concluded that this could also occur normally, e.g., automatically, in nature as a source of improvement. Hence the name “natural selection” he gave this theory. : The method adopted by nature to carry on this process, according to Darwin, was to create a large surplus of plants and animals and thus to provoke strife between them, for subsistence. ‘This suggested his struggle for existence theory, the purpose of which, as expressed by Herbert Spencer, was to in- sure the survival of the fittest. Under these [ 58 ] THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. conditions, whether due to greater physical strength, superior intelligence or other re- sources, the best or the fittest would alone survive. Time, however, has not sustained these interlocked theories. To understand the reasons for this fact, however, some idea of the meaning of the word “species” in the zoological sense is necessary. Darwin! him- self wrote in this connection that, “no defini- tion has satisfied naturalists; yet every natur- alist knows vaguely what he means when he speaks of a species. Generally the term includes the unknown element of a distinct act of creation.” ‘The term is, however, often confused with that of ‘“‘varieties’” for, as Darwin? states, “few well marked and well known varieties can be named which have not been ranked as species by at least some competent judges.” A few examples of the meaning of “species”’ will serve to illustrate its application. The house cat constitutes a species, the Felis domestica; the lion, however, is also a cat, but of another species, Felis leo; the tiger, 1Darwin: “Origin of Species,” 6th Ed., p. 39. “Darwin: Loc. cit., p. 43. [ 59 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. still another cat, belongs to a third species, Felis tigris, etc. The term “Felis” in all, however, indicates that they collectively be- long to the genus Felis, forming a family, the Felide, composed of meat eaters, the Carnivora, etc. The family dog is the Canis familiaris as to species, but another kind of dog, the wolf, belongs to the Canis lupus species, although both belong to one family, the Canide. The apes also constitute a family, the Simiide, which include several species, the orang-outang (Simia Satyrus), the gorilla (Simia gorilla), the chimpanzee (Simia anthropopithecus), etc. Man, how- ever, does not belong to that family; his own family, the Hominide, includes but a single species (Homo sapiens) which includes all humanity, all races of man. Two important facts suggest themselves in this connection. One is that the species is always the last of the subdivisions; the other is that despite this fact, each species is specific as far as reproduction of its kind is concerned. ‘Thus, although the tiger and the lion belong to the same family, the Felide, a tiger will never beget a lion or vice versa. [ 60 ] THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. While there is no doubt that, as we shall see, present day animals, including man, are evolutional and improved products of primi- tive animals of the same species, this know]l- edge is not due to Darwin’s theories; it has been worked out by other scientists, the geologists, paleontologists and embryologists mainly, as we shall see. Darwin’s own doctrine of descent, e.g., that new and dif- ferent species could be evolved from other species, has steadily lost ground. Darwin! himself, four years after the publication of his “Origin of Species,’ wrote to Bentham: “When we descend to details we can prove that no one species has changed . if “Nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory.” This honest and praiseworthy admission has not been contradicted by pains- taking investigations in all directions, and now, sixty-six years after Darwin’s “natural selection” theory was brought out, has been steadily losing ground as a fundamental doctrine. As a distinguished British scien- tist, Professor Bateson, said recently in an 1 Darwin: cited by L. T. More: “The Dogma of Evolution,” Princeton, 1925, p. 195. [ 61 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. address in Canada: “Our doubts are not as to the reality or truth of evolution, but as to the origin of species.” Some of the objections to natural selection as an explanation of the origin of species were as follows, according to Professor J. M. Coulter,! of the University of Chicago: “It has been claimed that natural selection cannot bridge the gap between one species and another. It deals only with small varia- tions that fluctuate from generation to gen- eration. Although these may be increased in various directions by continuous selection, they have never been known to cross the boundary line of species.” Nor did the “fittest” forms alone survive, while many unfit forms did so. Yet, the “struggle for existence” shows itself in many directions, but it is not manifest in the direc- tion vouchsafed by Darwin, e.g., to improve the race or plant-life. Its purpose is to render the earth habitable, for it is evident that if some sort of mutual destruction, such as the consumption of plant-life by herbivor- ous animals and others and the destruction 1J, M. Coulter: “Evolution, Heredity and Eugenics,” Bloom- ington, Ills., 1916, p. 47. [ 62 ] THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. of insects, rodents and smaller animals by larger ones both in the sea and on land did not occur, the countless numbers of plants and animals being constantly produced would soon overwhelm the whole earth. All this, however, was known long before the doctrine of the “survival of the fittest” was formu- lated. The prevailing teaching that “both man and the apes are descended from a common ancestor from which both lines have de- veloped” does not convey an_ established fact; it is purely inferential. Great similar- ity of structure, anatomical, physiological, pathological, etc., are inadequate to sustain even a kinship between the apes and man, since the great majority of the points of re- semblance can also be discerned in many other animals. As summarized by Professor J. Arthur Thomson: “The theory is that he [man] emerged probably as a mutation or saltatory variant from a stock common to the anthro- poid apes and to him.” A “theory” in the present connection does not warrant the “common stock” or “stem” assertion, partic- ularly in view of the fact that it has done [ 63 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. great harm in many directions where religion and morality were concerned. Especially should this be borne in mind in view of the statement of one of our leading comparative anatomists, Professor H. F. Osborn,! of Columbia University, that: “Be- tween the appearance of [Darwin’s] Origin of Species in 1859 and the present time, there have been great waves of faith in one explanation and then in another; each of these waves of confidence has ended in dis- appointment.” How does this affect the so-called “monkey theory of human descent’? It is obvious that if the apes, chimpanzees, gorillas and other “monkeys” belong to one family, the Simiudae, while man belongs to another family, the Hominide with but one species, its own, that Darwin’s theory having failed to bridge the gap between any two different species, there can be no ancestral connection, primordial or evolutional between “monkey” and man. The present situation of the question is graphically described by Professor J. Arthur 1H. F. Osborn: “The Origin and Evolution of Life,” Lon- don, 1918, p. 9. [ 64 | THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. Thomson,! of the University of Aberdeen. While man, according to this naturalist, “‘is zoologically affiliated with the highest order of mammals to which apes and monkeys be- Iga Loe apeavoyare has been in one direction, man’s in another, but the ves- sels sailed from the same port; their keels were laid down in the same shipbuilding yard.” Evidently, then, different keels meant different vessels and no one vessel could be a product of any other. ‘This means that sev- eral vessels named respectively, gibbon, chim- panzee, orang, gorilla and man were built in the same yard as separate vessels. 'They all left port to reach a goal which but one of them reached: man—though after under- going slight variations or physical changes each succeeding generation. Briefly, man, in the light of modern sci- ence, is the product of a sifting out process in which monkeys, small and large, failed to make good, while man, once animal-like, a “humanoid,” gradually evolved into the pres- ent-day human being. He stands alone as such, absolutely distinct from the “monkey.” 1J, Arthur Thomson: “Concerning Evolution,” New Haven, Conn., 1925, p. 196. z [ 65 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. “Entirely apart from the hwman family,’ wrote recently Professor Osborn,! “is the Simude (Latin, simia, ape), including the living and extinct anthropoid apes, the gor- illa, the chimpanzee, the orang and the gib- bon eDnesesanimals a). a). sadremiataiy different from the hwman family from its COTUCSL@IUSLOTY mau ee DUS eC ome Osborn, “the entire monkey-ape theory of human descent.) 2). 18 «a pureajicion which has been entirely set aside by modern anatomical research. All these animals ape or imitate man,” but “none of them is any- where near the true line of hwman ascent.” As Sir Arthur Keith,* another leading authority, also states: “All who have made a study of the human body are agreed that we must seek for man’s origin in an ape-like ancestor.” This means resemblance only, a parental connection having never been dem- onstrated. [All the italics are my own. ] Even the word “affiliated” in no way indi- cates a connection with any lower order of animal. It simply means that the anatomi- cal construction of the body of man resembles 1 Qsborn: Original article in the New York Times, July 12, 1925. 2 Sir Arthur Keith: “Antiquity of Man,” 1925, vol. ii, p. 730. [ 66 | THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. greatly that of the higher apes. This, how- ever, 1S but a commonplace resource of nature, e.g., that of using throughout the entire animal scale whatever mechanism will, in any animal, have been found to best fill the needs of a given function. ‘The word “affiliated,” therefore, means only a conveni- ent expression for scientists, extremely use- ful for purposes of study, but in no way in- dicating a parental connection, near or re- mote, with the apes. This is further em- phasized by the many anatomical differences between them illustrated under the next heading. A clear recognition of the independence of man from the ape family will prevent in the future, it is earnestly hoped, the deplorable mistakes, so hurtful to the cause of religion, which Mr. Bryan and his followers, including the States which have passed anti-evolution laws, have made concerning the whole ques- tion. ‘They have attacked the shadow of an undemonstrable theory of evolution; they have advertised the “monkey descent theory”’ which most scientists had already cast aside; they have assailed the scientists themselves, not realizing that they were injuring and [ 67 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. counteracting the influence of friends who, by seeking the truth, were devoting their life’s work, as Professor Metcalf so well said, “to God’s evergrowing revelation of Him- self to the human soul.” Great injustice is also being done to Mr. Darwin in the “anti-evolution” campaign, so ill advised in all its aspects. Indeed, atheism was certainly not an attribute of the moral structure of a man who could write as Dar- win! did in 1859, referring to the main pur- pose or aims of his labors, the production of higher types of animals, including man: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, while this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of grav- ity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.” Finally, it is not because the main con- ceptions of Darwin have not been sustained by science that his labors have not been im- mensely fruitful indirectly. Every scientific man looks upon him as one of the greatest 1 Darwin: “Origin of Species,” 6th Ed., p. 505. [ 68 | OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. naturalists that ever lived. In succeeding chapters we shall see—though mainly as a result of the vast amount of investigation it has provoked—one of the results of his labors, viz., that of placing physical man where he truly belongs, thus making it pos- sible for us all to realize that there eaists something in mankind, far greater than the physical self. THE ANIMAL BODY OF MAN NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. Referring to the million years taken up by the sifting out process which finally enabled man to reach his high station among animals, Professor J. Arthur Thomson! characterizes the statement that “man sprang from a monkey” as “‘an unutterable vulgarity.” He also says, however,? that “what Darwin proved as far as proof is possible, was man’s solidarity with the rest of creation.” In other words, man’s physical self is one with all other animals. ‘There can be no doubt on that score; and as we _ shall 1 J, Arthur Thomson: Loc. cit., p. 211. 2 Ibid: Loe. cit., p. 196. [ 69 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. see, this harmonizes perfectly with Biblical teachings. The identity of man as a chosen individual in nature from the very start, complies with the universal law that a given seed will pro- duce only the kind of living organism from which it was derived. A “monkey” origin would have broken this law. Again, a feat- ure too often overlooked is that man’s diver- gences from the ape are far greater than those met with in many plants in which, though they resemble greatly one another, this law is rigidly carried out. ‘Thus, as compared to any of the apes, man assumes perfectly the erect posture. He is dis- tinguished also by his greater spinal fiexi- bility, the perfect adaptability of his lower limbs to the support of his body, the freedom and full development of the thumb which renders him capable of doing most intricate work, mechanical and artistic; the relatively greater length of the lower limbs as com- pared to the upper, his small canine teeth, and, of cardinal importance, his high fore- head with reduced brow-ridges, with large cranial capacity for a relatively larger and richly convoluted brain and incomparably [70 ] CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SKELETONS OF MAN AND OF THE ORANG, ONE OF THE HIGHER APES. Me A : , Te. ih i ‘ © ' } i. i : aD ) ' = : @ Yh J @ ~~. 7 >a - ' 2 4 ‘a a iy e hae, 4 6 a > . : ly “yy 4 / bard OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. higher intellectual powers. The contrast is shown in the annexed illustration. This is usually accounted for by the state- ment that man assumes the erect posture after passing through the different ones peculiar to the various apes from the lemur or gibbon up. But this is again only an assumption calculated to fit in with Darwin’s theory. ‘The boundary line of species hav- ing never been crossed, there can be no skeletal scale of development from the ape to man, Homo sapiens possessing his own family tree. Comparing these departures between man and the ape with the uniformity which char- acterizes each of the multitude of plants, however low, as regards the specific repro- ductive property of its seed, it will become evident that in such highly developed animals as the apes and man, each should also have its own original and reproductive cell. Every single one of the many varieties of oak, for instance, has its own special acorn, and each of these will cause but one, its own specific kind of oak, to grow. ‘This applies also, to name but a few of all the trees and plants in which this principle prevails, to the cones [71 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. of the evergreens, the hemlock, fir, larch, spruce, etc., which differ only in that their leaves are somewhat dissimilar in shape; each cone will develop into its own special ever- green and none other. Inasmuch as there is no departure (unless artificial procedures, grafting, etc., are resorted to) from this law, it cannot but apply also to the highest and most complex living organisms, the mam- mals. In view of this fact and the collapse of the “monkey theory of human descent,” it seems clear that each of the apes develops from its own specific reproductive cell, and that this applies also to man. The “stem” idea, in virtue of which the genealogy of man and all apes is thought to be represented by a tree the stem of which contains the ancestral lines of all these an- thropoids, is also misleading, in the light of the foregoing conclusions. It is no more justified than would be the statement that all the varieties of oak, maple, locust, poplar, willow, ete., should arise from a common tree stem merely because they show many morphological features in common. It is the seed, the reproductive cell, from my viewpoint, which decides this question and [ 72 ] OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. each kind of living thing must be treated as a specific unit. This interpretation also confirms Biblical teachings. Thus, in Genesis 1:11, it is stated: “And God said: Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is m itself, upon the earth.” The same emphasis is laid upon the specific individuality of each animal in Genesis 1: 24, when God says: “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creep- ing thing and beast of the earth after his kind.” The earth, in truth, is rather disorderly and promiscuous in bringing forth plant life “each after his own kind,” unless it be under cultivation. Climatic conditions being equal, the flora of a given country is better illus- trated by a field studded here and there with various and different flowers, among many kinds of grasses and several kinds of trees, than in a botanical text-book in which—for [73 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. very good reasons—the flora of the region is carefully classified. This applies also to animals, the fauna, of a country. ‘The line of demarcation between plants and animals, in fact, is hardly perceptible where they meet, the protozoa, the first cells formed “in the beginning” in water, being prototypes of many formed ever since. But as the process of development progresses, plants and ani- mals, including man, do not develop from groups of cells merged together, but each from its own original nest, as it were. ‘The boundary line of species having’ never been crossed man cannot be considered as the pro- duct of a compound cell capable also of pro- ducing apes, but of his own specific cell. In other words, while man is an animal, he stands alone in nature as the product of a hwman primordial cell. The process of evolution from this proto- zoan or simple cell is shown by the science of Kmbryology, which reveals the pedigree of an embryo, or fertilized germ (in man the product of conception up to the fourth month) by recapitulating the whole history of its ancestry. Hinted at by the great naturalist, Agassiz, this fact was clearly Brey OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. enunciated by Prof. F. Muller in 1863. This ancestral history consists of various stages, each representing one step nearer the finished form. In the mammals, to which man be- longs, each step illustrates the adoption of organs or mechanisms used previously in lower forms. Darwin tried to explain this by variations which, having first appeared in one parent, tended to reappear at the same age in his off- spring. But this view has not been sus- tained, and no final solution of the problem has yet been vouchsafed. From my viewpoint, however, it looks as if nature built up successively various func- tional mechanisms, and added one to the other successively, each aggregate of steps forming a new animal until the most efficient, man, had been built up. This may be ex- emplified by the evolution of two related functions, the circulation and_ respiration. Thus, in the human embryo, we can readily recognize the first great step which occurred after the original or primordial cell has be- gun to develop in the terrestrial seas. It be- comes a minute fish, as far as its breathing apparatus and circulation of its blood are [75 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. concerned. Now, man carries this earliest transformation all through life. But instead of living in sea water, he carries this water with its salt, diluted and chemically adjusted to his needs, as blood in his blood-vessels. In other words, man is a fish who earries his sea-water within him, a fact which applies to all other animals. But how did the transition from a water animal to a land animal occur? Every one is familiar with amphibious ani- mals. Some, the Mexican axolotl, for in- stance, are able to breathe in water through gills and on land through lungs, and when kept on land, were found to live on normally. Hence the fact that the human embryo, re- peating the process, develops lungs, after which the gills disappear. ‘This does not oc- cur invariably, however, for we sometimes meet in our patients “gill clefts” left over from the patient’s embryonic life, which had failed to disappear. Another adaptation to man’s use (as well as in all other higher animals), which is in- itiated in fishes, is that of pulmonary and tis- sue respiration. ‘Thus, many fishes possess in regions of the body which in high animals [ 76 ] OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. are occupied by the lungs, a structure known as the “air bladder” which is now regarded as an organ of flotation. As one of its names indicates, it is filled with air, which, as is well known, contains oxygen. A surprising feature of modern knowledge is that the chief fundamental function of the body, respiration, has never been explained except by a doctrine, that of “diffusion,” which is as erroneous as it is misleading. As an editorial writer (a physiologist) wrote a few years ago: “An answer to the question as to how the all-important oxidations in the body are brought about is almost as obscure today as it was a hundred years ago.” My own investigations, judging from the con- siderable supporting evidence published by other investigators, seem to me to have solved this problem. The walls of the elongated sac known as the air bladder in various fishes, are lined in- ternally, in some elevated areas of this struc- ture, with a membrane very similar, in vas- cularity, to that of the human pulmonary air cell. That of the air bladder is in reality 1 Editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Asso- ciation, 1919, vol. Ixxii, p. 1697. [77 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. but a large air-cell itself, and not intended as an “organ of flotation,” but, in keeping with the views of some zoologists, as an emergency respiratory sac which enables cer- tain fishes to breathe in stagnant waters, or at great depths where the supply of free oxygen in the water has become insufficient for respiration through the gills. Like the lungs, it develops from the pharynx, and admits air from the latter through a small duct. In an asphyxiated fish, the oxygen in the air of the bladder which usually is about twenty-five per cent., entirely disappears and is replaced by carbonic acid and nitrogen. How could the oxygen in the air of the bladder be taken up by the blood, however? Personal labors have shown that the ab- sorption of oxygen from the air in this air bladder was due to an internal secretion sup- plied by organs which correspond to the “adrenals” (overlying the kidneys) in man. These organs secrete into the blood of the cardinal vein of fishes a substance which en- ables this blood to take up oxygen from the air and to carry it through the arteries to the animal’s tissues. In man, the only dif- ference is that while the gills have disap- [78 ] OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. peared, the oxygen-absorbing spaces of the air bladder have become divided into millions of minute air cells in the lungs, which like- wise receive the secretion of the adrenals through the inferior vena cava and the heart. The human respiratory system, therefore, is a development of that of fishes with the secretion of the adrenals as chemical respira- tory agent. This interpretation of respiration, formu- lated by myself in 1903, and since sustained by the labors of many other investigators, explains many heretofore obscure phenom- end. These various examples will suffice to show that man’s evolution from his original cell in primordial seas, includes the adoption of organs similar to those of various other animals. The ape, whose body resembles most closely that of man, does likewise in many intricate particulars. ‘This does not mean, however, that man descends or ascends eer ects who may be interested in the functions of the human adrenals in respiration will find the subject sum- marized in an article by myself published in the medical journal “Endocrinology,” November-December, 1925, or in either of the ten editions of my work (two volumes) on “The Internal Secretions and the Principles of Medicine,” pub- lished by the F. A. Davis Co., Philadelphia. [79 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. from the ape; it only means that nature used one general system to build up all higher animals and that man and the ape, being the highest animals, were products of the same process. The salient fact, however, is that man is, without doubt, himself developed as an animal. Coming now to additional evidence to this effect, much is afforded by geology and paleontology. After a very long line of generations (which includes the appearance of “human- oids” or “cave men,” not far above beasts), the attributes of the present day man began to appear. Prominent among these are skulls which are typically human, and im- plements which could only have been used by man, though found in layers of soil known to be from 45,000 to 500,000 years old. In the latter layers, for instance, corresponding with the Pliocene age, many tools, weapons, flints, ete., were found which no animal but man could have fashioned. Moreover, a workshop was discovered in which fire had been used. Not only did the shop con- clusively point to the presence of man, but the fire-building process that it indicated, [ 80 | OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. likewise. In cold regions, of Africa for in- stance, a fire left by hunters will be greatly enjoyed by apes, but never has one of these animals, the nearest to man, been known to prolong the fire by adding wood or brush to it, even when plenty is right at hand. The conformation of fossil human skulls was found gradually to change as the layers of soil approached the surface, in that the brow, chin, size of the skull, etc., resembled increasingly that of the average man of our day. A distinct process of development was obvious at every stage. The Piltdown man of 500,000 years ago, with his flat brow, ab- sent chin and limited brain cavity indicating a correspondingly limited brain power, was, for instance, a very different individual from the Cro-Magnon man of 25,000 years ago with his prominent chin, full brow and large brain. When we consider that, in the opinion of scientists, the age of the earth approximates a billion years and that life in its various forms began at least fifty million years ago, man in his organized state is relatively a new- comer, the earliest signs of his presence hav- ing been discovered in Foxhall, England, in : [ 81 | MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. rocks over a million years old. Even these contained crude flint implements, which could only have been used by hands capable of clipping, a power which the highest apes do not possess, their thumbs being entirely too short, while the degree of intelligence re- quired to manufacture or use the implements was quite beyond that of any living or ex- tinct ape. While man appeared late, we must not lose sight of the fact that his pre- liminary development to that complex state also occupied a long period, so that the cell from which he obtained his start, just as an original acorn started the oak, must have taken several millions of years more. An important query in this connection is whether the earliest cells which evolved plants or animals began doing so only when the earth had been sufficiently evolved or de- veloped to sustain life? The answer to this question is too often overlooked. Dr. C. B. Davenport,! director of the department of genetics of the Carnegie Institute, of Washington, D. C.,—who, by the way, justly states that the biologist be- lieves “the word of God” to be “the testi- 1¢C. B. Davenport: Scientific Monthly, August, 1925. [ 82 | OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. mony of nature,’—writes in this connection: “All kinds of organisms were not made at the beginning of the world. There are now thousands of forms of animals and plants that reproduce their kind which did not exist a century ago. Within the last ten years there have been produced scores of forms of the banana fly never before seen by the eye of man.” Again, those of us who have studied in- timately the processes of nature are familiar with the economy and precision with which apparently divergent functions are carried out. The process of digestion in all animals, including man, is performed, for instance, by means of enzymes as active agents. As personal labors have shown, this same diges- tive process serves in the blood and tissue cells to carry on the vital process and im- munity. Bacteria are digested anywhere in the body in the same way that food is digested in the alimentary tract. The same uniformity is evident in the anatomical structure of all animals. Muscles, nerves, bones, blood, ete., are practically similar in all of them, includ- ing man. When it comes to the anthropoid, or man-like apes, the resemblance in all these [ 83 ] MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM, particulars is striking, simply because struc- turally and chemically, they are the nearest to man. Professor W. W. Keen,! the Nestor of American Surgery, in his book further em- phasizes the remarkable physical resemblance between the higher animals and man, bring- ing in besides the similarities mentioned above many others such as the effects of operations on the brain, ancestral vestiges, identical diseases, embryonic deformities, heredity, the influence of emotions, sexuality, etc.—all proving conclusively that the human body is but an animal body, with all its vulnerabilities to defects, diseases, destruc- tion and decay. Does this tend to invalidate Biblical teach- ings? ‘The opposite is emphatically the case. It serves to demonstrate that science, far from antagonizing the Bible, fully sustains the great truths concerning the physical nature of man that it contains. Man attrib- utes to his animal body the supreme pre- rogative of being the “image of God,” but science proves definitely to him that this is a gross error, quite in accord with what the 1W. W. Keen: “I Believe in God and Evolution,” 1922. [ 84 | OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. apostle Paul (Romans 1:22 and 23) told the Romans, referring to their self-idolatry: “Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools” and ‘‘changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man.” Science, moreover, as we shall see pres- ently, fulfills another great mission when thus proving the physical nature of the human body. It brings out of the shadow into which worldly interests have practically rele- gated it, man’s distinguishing feature above all beasts, his spiritual body, for which the physical body serves as a temporary abode. [ 85 | CHAPTER III. EVOLUTION AS PROOF THAT MAN IS DIVINE. MAN, OF ALL ANIMALS, ALONE ENDOWED WITH A DIVINE SPIRIT. N the light of the data submitted in the foregoing chapter, the following remarks by Prof. J. IT. Scopes, of the Rhea County High School of Dayton, Tenn., at the time of his trial, were plainly justified: “As an engineer and chemist I can say that chem- istry, geology and biology are all pathways to God, and the only book that God Almighty ever wrote is read through the spectacles of geology and biology, and on every page of God’s only book is the story of evolution. I have never met a true student of science who was not a very religious man. “Bryan believes that to accept evolution and permit it to be taught in the schools will cause a moral collapse of the young people of the country. On the contrary, he would cause a moral collapse by not permitting the truth to be taught.” [ 86 | MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. We have seen that all branches of biology sustain the evolution of man from a primary cell, which initiates the purely physical nature of his body. What evolution did, then, ir- respective of any Darwinian interpretation, is to prove that the body is a product of the soil—quite in keeping with Genesis 2:7, which says: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” in proving the correctness of Biblical teaching in this connection, however, the scientific study of evolution has done more: It has placed on an absolutely solid founda- tion the fact that we must not confuse the physical or clay-formed human body with the Divine self it contains—that which the apostle Paul, in answer to the question: “How are the dead raised and with what manner of body do they come?” said (I Corinthians 15: 44): “There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.” By conclusively demonstrating the lowli- ness of our physical body, thus distinguish- ing it from the spiritual body, science also [ 87 | EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. confirms Paul’s teaching (I Corinthians 15:36): “That which thou sowest is not quick- ened.” Both Paul and science thus affirm that the seed of man, his physical self, belongs to earth, and as a product of the clay is not it- self a spiritual entity. This is quite in keep- ing with EKhhu’s (Job 34:15) statement that “Man shall turn again into dust.” It might be objected, however, that all this is contradicted by the verse (Genesis 2:7): “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” the word “life” here being taken in its literal sense, 2.€., that meant when we speak of the life of the body. But, as previously stated, the Hebrew word rowach does not mean “life,” but “spirit.” What the verse means, therefore, is that God made the body of man out of the soil, but endowed it with a breath of His Own Spirit or living soul. Science, by demonstrating that man, as a purely physical animal, can only serve as [ 88 ] MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. an abode of the Divine Spirit in him, also sustains Paul’s statement in II Corinthians (6:16) that: “Ye are the temple of the living God.” Human vanity, we have seen, receives somewhat of a shock in this connection. Dr. Osborn, in an article previously quoted, re- calls the great French anatomist Testut’s comparison of the anatomy of man as re- gards its limitations, with the admonitions of a slave employed to remind each Roman Emperor that he was “but a man and not a god.” Similarly, science keeps on repeating: “You are only a man, your daily and hourly existence depends on nervous, muscular, glandular and skeletal systems which were designed not in a few hours but in many millions of years. Your own cellular struc- ture of development from germ and embryo to manhood is a syncopated epitome of your past history.” In other words, man should not apply to his physical body, built out of dust and which returns to dust, the verse (Genesis 1: 26): “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” [ 89 | EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. A little reflection will suffice to suggest that its tendencies to depravity and crime and to a multitude of diseases, render the physical body anything but a divine organism such as those who speak of an “anthropo- morphic God” would have it. Indeed, as stated in Romans (1:22 and 23), we have seen, the Bible speaks very deprecatingly of those who “change the glory of the uncorrup- tible God into an image made like to corrup- tible man.” This, however, does not prevent man from being the “temple of the Living God,” or in other words, a terrestrial organism capable of housing a “spiritual body.” Indeed, it is in virtue of this special endowment that men in general, in keeping with the second part of the verse in Genesis (1:26): “Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Proof of his superiority is self evident on all sides. It is because, even though de- veloped and built on lines similar to those of lower animals and corruptible like them, [ 90 | MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. he embodies this spark of the Divine self that, unlike the lower animals, man is him- self a creator. Hence, the marvelous in- ventive powers, pure expressions of his spiritual genius and the special development of his brain, which he shows in all directions: science, art, literature, etc. It is when the mental powers of such men as Pasteur, Lister, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Goethe, Schiller, Raphael, Michel Angelo, Lavoisier, Laplace, Newton, Emerson, Edison and many others are compared with the greatest achievements of any lower animal—even the highest, the ape, elephant, dog, etc.—that it is possible fully to realize what the only spiritualized animal, the highest of all, rep- resents on earth. The never-found “missing link” becomes an absurdity under these conditions. It will continue to be “missing’”’ now that the gap between man and monkey has been found unbridgeable. During the Scopes tnal, Judge J. T. Raulston had occasion, very appropriately, to propound a series of questions to the at- torneys of the defense, none of which could have been met with the Darwinian theory as [ 91 | EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. standard. ‘This theory once eliminated, and each species, including man, preserving its autonomy, all can be satisfactorily answered on the basis of perfect harmony between religion and sciences Both the questions and answers are submitted here in the hope that they will more clearly than by any other means define the newer relations between these two greatest human assets. In Judge Raulston’s words: “First. When you insist man descended from a lower order of animals, have you evi- dence to support this theory sufficiently defi- nite to justify the expectation that intelli- gent people will accept it and adopt this theory?” Man in the light of modern labors, does not descend from a lower order of animals; his biological genealogy is strictly human from the initial cell to his birth, even though functional resources utilized in his body are also used by Nature in other animals. Again evolution as herein presented clearly sus- tains Biblical teachings when the errors of translation in Genesis are corrected. “Second. Have you any evidence that this theory can in any aspect of life be bene- [ 92 | MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. ficial to man? Is not the contrary true— that it tends to degrade man?” it is precisely because the pleadings of the Divine Spirit are cast aside increasingly that the moral decay summarized in the first chapter of this book can proceed increasingly each year in the United States. The inter- pretation of evolution submitted elevates man by giving his Divine Spirit a degree of prominence which he has too freely given to his body. It will be of great benefit to him to realize this fact, for he will be more vulnerable to the promptings of his con- science, the spiritual beacon of his soul, and to the teachings of his church whether Christian or Jewish, God being the Father of us all. “Third. Doesn’t the theory of evolution seek to destroy the doctrine of the inspira- tion of the Bible’? We have seen that precisely the opposite will be the case with the modern doctrine of evolution as standard. A greater recognition of the Divine Spirit in man will normally accentuate belief in the Divine inspiration for which the Bible is the intermediary and more clearly convey its lofty teachings. [ 93 | EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. “Fourth. Doesn’t it purpose to eliminate the divinity of Christ’’? Eiven the Darwinian theory did not, as framed by its author, tend to eliminate the divinity of Christ.. The newer conception of evolution, however, by restricting to man alone the possession of a Divine Spirit, by confirming the origin of his body from the dust, indirectly sustains the divinity of Christ. “Fifth. Doesn’t it deny the resurrection?” Hvolution, bearing as it does only on the physical side of the body, cannot deny resur- rection, but the concordance of the newer in- terpretation of evolution summarized in the foregoing pages with Biblical teachings would tend to suggest concordance as regards resur- rection rather than denial. “Siath. If the theory of evolution de- stroys man’s faith in the integrity of the Bible, in the divinity of Christ and the resur- rection, doesn’t it thereby undermine the Christian religion?” The perfect concordance of the newer in- terpretation submitted with Biblical teachings will only serve to increase faith in the Bible. We have just seen that this can only re- [ 94 ] MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. flect favorably on the Christian doctrine. Instead of undermining the Christian re- ligion, it will tend to fortify its foundation. “Seventh. Can civilization survive the de- struction of the Christian religion?” This country at the present time is giving an example of what the destruction of Christianity would mean. It leads all other civilized nations in crime, the main cause be- ing loss of influence of religion, partly owing to internal quarrels in various churches. Other major reasons have been reviewed in the second chapter. Disbelief has also been fostered by the Darwinian doctrine of evolu- tion, though only because its tenets have been perpetuated by laymen who failed to realize that scientists no longer supported it. ‘The trend of the prevailing interpretation of evo- lution outlined herein, far from tending to- wards destroying Christianity is strongly to sustain its teachings by, as will be further demonstrated in succeeding chapters, foster- ing belief in God, the Father of Christ. [95 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. MAN'S DIVINE SPIRIT AS THE SOURCE OF HIS SUPERIOR INTELLECT AND OF NOBLER INSTINCTS. The general heading of the present chapter consists of the phrase: “Evolution as Proof that Man is Divine.” ‘The word “proof” is seldom used in science, so numerous are the possibilities of change on the morrow. Yet, in the present connection, proof is available in the impossibility to bridge another gap, that between the highest of animals next to man and man himself as regards intelli- gence. Books galore have been written having in view another link between the lower animals and man, or indeed an un- broken chain of evolutional intelligence, from the lowest unicellar or primary living animal to man. This, however, is but another obscuring residue of the Darwin theory. Precisely, as the boundary line of species has never been crossed, so has the enormous gulf between the highest possibilities of the most intelli- gent of the lower animals known and the highest intellectual possibilities of man never been bridged. They are far beyond any de- [ 96 | MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. gree of comparison, as already stated in the preceding section. Darwin, himself, was unable to tell us why the apes should have stopped short a million of years or so ago as regards the de- velopment of the mind, while man forged ahead, in this particular until he reached his present lofty intellectual status. Darwin wrote in this connection: “If it be asked why apes have not had their intellects developed to the same degree as that of man, general causes only can be assigned, in answer, and it is unreasonable to expect anything more definite considering our ignorance with re- spect to the successive stages of development through which each creature has passed.” As to present knowledge on the subject, Professor G. H. Parker of Yale,! stated, (1923), in reference to the relation of our mental life to our body “we are still not far from the position described by Vesalius in 1543, when he wrote “How the brain per- forms its functions in imagination, in reason- ing, in thinking and in memory, I can form no opinion whatever.’”’ Such being the case how may we expect to bridge the gap be- 1G, H. Parker: “The Evolution of Man,” 1923, p. 102. ; [97 | EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. tween the most intelligent animal mind, which President J. R. Angell! compares to that of a young baby or low grade moron, and man’s stupendous mental powers? ‘This question has never been answered. It is in this connection, from my view- point, that evolution has afforded proof that man is divine. His intellectual possibilities are so great when they are compared to those of any other so-called intelligent animal, that they betoken the presence in him of some influence, some power which no other animal possesses. In other words, man’s special in- tellect is due to his Divine spirit. “Nothing is more striking throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms,” writes Pro- fessor Agassiz,* “than the unity of plan in the structure of the most diversified types. From pole to pole, in every longitude, mam- malia, birds, reptiles and fishes exhibit one and the same plan of structure, involving abstract conceptions of the highest order” . “If there is anything which places man above all other beings in Nature, it is precisely the circumstance that he possesses 1J. R. Angell: Ibid., p. 121. 2 Agassiz: “Essays on Classification.” [ 98 ] MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. those noble attributes without which, in their most exalted excellence and perfection, not one of these general traits of relationship so characteristic of the great types of the ani- mal and vegetable kingdoms can be under- stood or even perceived.” All these ‘abstract conceptions of the highest order” are attributed by the great Swiss naturalist to the Supreme Mind. Man is identified by him as the only being capable of witnessing this splendor, of estimating its worth, of grasping its immensity and, what is more, of conceiving their Divine source. Indeed, as stated in the Hebrew version by Job 32:8: “God inspires a man; it is the Almighty God who breathes knowledge into him.” How significant is the restriction to that one being, among the multitudes of living creatures, notwithstanding the striking simi- larities in physical structure and their iden- tical method of physicochemical disintegra- tion after death! It fittingly brands man’s higher psychical self with attributes of the Divine kinship which Biblical teachings claim for him as “the temple of a living God.” [ 99 | EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. Anthropology indirectly sustains the posi- tion of other branches of science in this con- nection: It places man at the head of creation as endowed with mental powers which mark him off clearly from all other animals. It is not, as we have seen, by comparing the aptitudes of the highest animals in the scale of species, the ape, with those of the most degraded human beings that we can distinguish the immeasurable distance that separates the human from other species; but only by contrasting the highest mental powers of the ape with those of man. Any link here is unthinkable. Can we in the same breath speak of the creations of the most highly trained ape ever known with those of a man who is able to compose a tragedy, a symphony, to plan one of our magnificent cathedrals, to solve great astronomical problems, to discover the mani- festations of electricity, radioactivity and harness them to the uses of mankind; to work out the intricacies of creative chemis- try; nitrogen, soil foods, coal-tar colors, etc. ? Language, that is to say, articulate gram- matical speech, as is well known, is the ex- clusive property of the human race. As an [ 100 ] MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. anthropologist, Dr. E. B. Taylor, states: ‘“Man’s power of using a word, or even a gesture, as a symbol of a thought, and the means of conversing about it, is one of the points where we see him parting company with all lower species, and starting on his own career of conquest through the higher intellectual regions.” The power to invent is as exclusively man’s own. “No instance can be cited,” writes the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, another distinguished anthropologist, “where even the most advanced of the inferior animals fash- ioned a single tool. When it is remembered that even the very lowest tribes of men make tools of remarkable ingenuity, and that in the most remote geologic age in which we find the slightest traces of man he both knew the use of fire and manufactured weapons, these distinctions mark him off broadly from all other living creatures.” The very word “create” (bara in Hebrew) which means to cut, carve, hew, shape or give existence to something new, affords the earliest clew sought by geologists and anthro- pologists to identify the presence of man in the deeper strata through cutting and hew- [ 101 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. ing tools and weapons. ‘These are some- times found, in fact, long before fragments of the fossil remains of their makers and users are uncovered. 'To create, thus typifies in scientific researches the dawn of the Creator’s presence in man. The Divine origin of the creative mind also suggests itself if an effort is made to ascer- tain the actual source of creative or inventive genius. It is then found that most inven- tions are but reproductions of processes which are commonplace in nature. Our own body—which but typifies similar functions in lower animals—affords many examples of this fact. The intricate water-supply systems of our cities are but enlarged replicas of our blood circulatory system, with its powerful central pump, the heart, and its conduits and pipes, the blood-vessels and their minute capillaries to our cells, repre- senting the small water-pipes which furnish our homes. A great electric power plant is also typified by our own brain, the spinal and general nervous systems. Even central dynamos are reproductions of many ganglia or “solar plexuses,” star-like masses widely distributed in our body which insure proper [ 102 ] MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. subdivision and distribution of electric energy to the blood-vessels of all organs and thus regulate their supply of blood and the nutri- tion and functional activity of our tissues. Electric light devices are common in deep- sea animals. Some actually have an in- candescent lamp hung ahead of them by a stem projecting from the head. They turn on the light when in motion and as needed. Some cuttlefish (Thanmalampas, for in- stance) have glowing lights at the tip and middle of their anterior “feelers” to enable them to detect, follow and illuminate their prey. Others remind one of Christmas trees with their different colored lights; others again carry a string of lamps along their body; some, indeed, may be actually studded with them as observed in specimens found during the Sargasso Sea explorations. Turning to other fields, the aéroplane is but an imperfect reproduction of a bird; even the radio sets, wireless telegraphy and other modern wonders could all be shown to be reproductions of what nature has been doing millions of years. Man thus utilizes creative powers which already exist in Nature and if creation itself [ 103 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. is traceable to God, whence does man him- self receive his power to create? We have seen the answer in the quotation from the Hebrew version of Job 32:8, on page 99, i.€., God’s breath, the Divine Spirit, in him. In these conditions evolution has clearly afforded proof that man is divine, for by rel- egating his body to its lowly level, the clay, it has raised the spiritual soul of which he is the “temple” to the level which its identity as the “image” (“‘lkeness” in the Hebrew text) of God entitles it. Man’s nobler attributes, love of mankind and efforts to relieve its sufferings, also in- spired by his Divine soul, may be illustrated by the accomplishments of the various de- partments of Medicine in modern times. During the sixteenth century, Ambroise Paré, the leading military surgeon of his time, ordered his aids to “sweetly cut the throats” of all badly wounded soldiers, to end their sufferings. Professor W. W. Keen! states that his great master in surgery (also mine), Professor Samuel D. Gross, Sr., and other surgeons of his generation recalled “the 1W. W. Keen: “Medical Research and Human Welfare,” 1917, p. 1%. [ 104 J MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. way in which patients were bound hand and foot and held in the tight grip of four strong orderlies to secure partial quietude, and of the almost frantic involuntary struggles of patients and their screams of agony in the pre-anesthetic days.” In 1844 this torture of all unfortunates who had to undergo an operation ceased forever, for then began the anesthesia era with the successive discoveries of nitrous oxide (Horace Wells, Hartford, Conn.); ether (C. W. Long, Athens, Ga., 1842); chloroform (Sir J. Y. Simpson of Edinburgh, 1847) and other general, local and spinal anesthetics as true godsends! The strides of surgery itself have been as phenomenal. The labors of Louis Pasteur (born 1822, died 1895), by introducing the science of bacteriology, prepared the way for benefits to suffering humanity which have no parallel in the history of the world. It was his great work in this direction which suggested to Lister the deadly role which bacteria played in surgery and brought about the marvelous operative results obtained ever since. 'To these discoveries we owe the fact that it was possible to save the lives of nearly: ninety-two per cent. of American soldiers [ 105 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. wounded and injured during the World War. As stated in the report of the Surgeon- general of the United States Army for 1920 (p. 21): “When the more destructive effects of the military agents are considered with the greater prevalence of artillery mis- siles and the undoubtedly higher percentage of multiple wounds, it is evident that the saving of life was much greater than is ap- parent from these figures.” The influence of Pasteur’s researches on the curtailment of disease has been no less marvelous through investigators who took up the study of the worst destroyers of humanity, as a result of the great French- man’s work. Before his labors enlightened the world, the mortality from many diseases was terrific. In the French Campaign in 1802 in San Domingo the deaths from yel- low fever, malaria and dysentery were so numerous that reinforcements could not ar- rive in time to replace the dead soldiers. Every man died. Today, all these three diseases have been mastered. While the role of the mosquito had been suspected by many—Dr. Carlos [ 106 ] MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. Finlay, of Havana, in particular (1881)— tests to ascertain this fact were necessary. As no animal was inoculable, the physicians and army assistants who were conducting a research in Havana risked their own lives. Prominent among these were Major Walter Reed, Private James Carroll of the U. S. Army and Doctors Aristides Agramonte and Jesse W. Lazear, the latter of whom died. Major Gorgas (our late Surgeon General) then screened yellow fever patients and destroyed mosquitoes. Havana, South America, our Southern States, among other regions, have had no epidemics of yellow fever since, although they had recurred prac- tically yearly for over one hundred and fifty years! Far worse even as man destroyer was malaria. A malignant form, for instance, killed three hundred thousand natives in India within two months—more victims of the infectious mosquito. It was the curse of our Southern States and of all tropical countries in particular. Again, intelligent protection against this insect by General Gorgas reduced the mortality from nearly twenty per cent. during the French Panama [ 107 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. Canal operations—which ruined the enter- prise at the time—to but eight-tenths of one per cent. Everybody knows today that where there is no infective mosquito there is no malaria, and is familiar with the many measures available to destroy mosquitoes. Dysentery, the third man killer of the tropics, has also had to yield to the action of emetine after its cause, a parasite, had been found. Children with diphtheria three decades ago, were destroyed by this dread disease at the rate of at least thirty per cent. Now, the use of antitoxin on the first day saves practically every case. ‘This was rendered possible by the labors of Dr. Behring, of Germany, and Dr. Roux, of the Paris Pasteur Institute, originally prompted by Pasteur’s initial discovery. Last, but by no means least of the few examples which it is possible to submit here, is typhoid fever. During both the Civil and the Spanish American Wars, the mortality was extremely high. During the World War the mortality was reduced at such a rate by antityphoid vaccination in the U. S. Army from September 1, 1917 to May 2, [ 108 ] MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 1919, that despite the millions of men ex- posed, there were but two hundred and thirteen deaths. Colonel Russel, head of the service, calculated that if the conditions of the Civil War had prevailed in the recent war, the death rate would have reached over fifty-one thousand, while under those of the Spanish War, it would have exceeded sixty- eight thousand. In other words, it is safe to say that nearly one hundred and twenty thousand young men were saved from death on this one item alone! ‘And why? Because Drs. Pfeiffer and Kolle, in Germany, and Dr. Wright, of England, had found that vaccination started a defensive reaction in the body against the specific germs of typhoid fever—another wonderful result traceable back to the original labors of Louis Pasteur. What every one should bear in mind in this connection is that it is practically cer- tain that every family in the United States today includes one or more members who would have passed away if the pioneer labors of this one scientist, who loved humanity— and who also did much for animals by arrest- ing the swine plague, the chicken cholera, ete. [ 109 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. and also the many diseases met in animals as well as in man—had not placed the initial steel forged barriers in the way. And what was the creed of Louis Pasteur, termed by an editorial writer in the London Standard, “the most perfect man who has ever entered the Kingdom of Science” when, I might say, he entered the Kingdom of Heaven? In Pasteur’s own words, it was as follows: “He who proclaims the existence of the In- fintte—and none can avoid it—accumulates in that affirmation more of the supernatural than is to be found in all the miracles of all the religions; for the notion of the Infinite presents the double character that it forces itself upon us and yet is incomprehensible. When this notion seizes upon our under-— standing,)we can but) kneeliam a2 lesce everywhere the inevitable expression of the Infinite in the world; through it, the super- natural is at the bottom of every heart” . “Blessed is he who carries within himself a god, an ideal, and who obeys it; ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the gospel virtues; therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions; they all [110 ] EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. reflect light from the Infinite.’! (See Frontispiece. ) Evolution, by making it possible for us to realize fully the physical nature of our body, reveals to us the spirituality of such a man as Pasteur, and this spirituality itself leads up to its Divine source. We must recognize, therefore, that far from being an enemy of mankind, evolution is one of the greatest elucidative contributions to religion of all times. EVE NOT THE “FIRST WOMAN” BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT WHICH A CHILD RE- CEIVES THROUGH ITS MOTHER. We are dealing here with the very founda- tion of religious thought. Evolution, as in- terpreted in the foregoing pages, has shown that even with the Darwinian theory elim- inated, man, like all other animals, developed gradually from his own original cell. His creation, therefore, as usually apprehended from Biblical text, with Adam and Eve as the “original pair,” can no longer stand. Adam, we have seen, does not mean a special 1“Tife of Pasteur” by Valléry-Radot. Introduction by William Osler, 1924. (111 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. individual but “man” in general. ‘This, how- ever, leaves the identity of Eve in question, particularly in view of the statement in Genesis 2: 22 that of “The rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman.” Although the “rib” problem has never hitherto been explained, we have, in the Biblical version of the creation of woman, an example of the powers of observation exist- ing even long before the original text of the Bible was written, for two small glands (the adrenals which by their secretions insure pul- monary and tissue respiration we have seen) located just above the kidneys and resting posteriorly against the lowest false rib on each side materially influence sex development. The ancients had evidently observed, as physicians occasionally do today, and veter- inarians likewise in the lower animals, that a tumor of the organs referred to caused striking changes in the body at large and influenced markedly the sex in children. Such a tumor, especially the type we now term “hypernephroma,” produces in a boy enor- mous development of the entire body; a boy of seven years, for instance, being trans- [112 ] EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. formed in a couple of years into a full grown man with beard, ete., and sometimes with such muscular development as to constitute the “boy Hercules’ of shows. In such a case reported recently, for example, a boy of four years and ten months had a full beard and could throw a man in a wrestling match. Such tumors are much more common in girls than in boys, however. The important point in this connection, as regards the “rib” mystery, is that when the tumor occurs in girls or in any female animal, the cow, for instance, it causes besides abnormal virility, transformation into a male. But in some individuals, tumors of the same glands pro- duce double sex or hermaphroditism. These growths, which occur behind or very close to the lower ribs, are the only ones which influence sex transformations, and on the basis of many cases met by them in human beings and the lower animals, the ancient observers doubtless reached their con- clusion that the first woman was created from man. The “rib creation” of woman, however, even though based on observed phenomena, is a mere makeshift introduced, perhaps by 8 [113 J EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. the Chaldeans, to meet a difficult situation, but in no way belonging to the revealed Biblical text. The need for such an explanation suggests itself when we realize that the so-called “Adam” was supposed to be alone in the world, being its “first man,” and that, there being no wife for him to render the usual process of reproduction possible, the first “offspring” had to be supplied by “Adam” himself. The effects of tumors under the ribs afforded suggestive food for a plausible explanation, at least for the primitive minds such as those addressed or taught at the time. Analyzed in its higher sense, however, why should the male body be made the origin or source of the female body even in this sym- bolic crude way? ‘The answer to this ques- tion appears when the meaning of other verses concerned with the process are ana- lyzed. Thus, as stated in Genesis 2:18: “The Lord God said: It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him an helpmate for him.” An essential point in this verse is that “the man” is used, meaning mankind at large, while in the next verse it is plainly inferred f1i4] EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. that “there was not found a helpmate for him” in all cattle, fowl and beasts in the field. No lower animal, no other species, could serve so lofty a mission. Mankind alone therefore, a single species and family as established by science, the Hominide, could become (““become” because we are deal- ing here with the primordial human cell en- dowed with its power to assume its Divine function) the “temple of the Living Soul.” Hence the verse in Genesis 1: 27: **So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.” That it was actually the primordial cell which was endowed with the power of as- suming its role as temple of the Divine soul, after having undergone its evolution to the human status is also indicated by the ques- tion in Matthew 19: 4: “Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female?” Analysis of the “rib” problem, in the light of modernized evolution, thus harmonizes with the conclusions previously reached con- cerning the immeasurable superiority of man [115 ] EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. and woman over and above all other animal species—due to the presence in them of the Divine Spirit. Elimination of Eve as the temptress of Adam only serves to bring to light her sub- lime role as a spiritual entity. Indeed, every bit of scientific knowledge we possess points to her divine role: Even long before the Biblical story was recorded, and over 2000 years before the Christian era, stone tablets in our archeological museum at the University of Pennsylvania, written in Sumerian, the oldest of the Babylonian languages and read recently by assistant pro- fessor Edward Chiera, attest to her identity as the greatest benefactress of the human race. Why the abominable prevailing interpre- tation of the story of human creation which, besides the errors already noted, makes of “Eve” the mother of mankind, its first woman, a temptress, not to mention the de- grading insinuations it provokes? Again, have we to contend with a misinterpretation of the Hebrew text. In the preceding chapter we saw that the word “‘life’ used in the verse (Genesis 2: 7) [116 ] EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. which states that God blew the “breath of life’ into the nostrils of man, did not mean the usual interpretation of life, but “spirit,” God’s spirit, and that because of this Divine act man “became a living soul.” We also saw that Adam means simply “man’’—man in general. “Eve” stands in a similar posi- tion; it is not a personal name; it means “life” (eva). If, now, one ascertains what the word “life” is in Hebrew, it is found to be chaiyim. 'This word, however, has several other meanings; among these are “the breath of life,’ the “soul or mind,” “the Divine Spirit”—a suggestive aggregate. The trend of all this will perhaps be made clear by repeating I Corinthians 15: 44, and appending to each segment of the text its own meaning: “There is a natural body” (the human physical body) and “There is a spiritual body” (Eva, the breath of life or Divine Spirit or Soul). The original Mosaic doctrine refers to Eva as “the Being which is, was, and will be,” thus emphasizing the element of per- petuity, and forming part of the Very God- head as a spiritual entity in which sex, a ter- pabbey EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. restrial factor of physical development on earth, we have seen, plays no role. “In the psychic genesis,” writes Schuré! “the human soul is known as Aisha, another name for Eve. Its abode is heaven, where it lives happily in the Divine ether, but without knowledge of itself. It enjoys heaven with- out understanding it. To understand it, it must have been forgotten and then recalled; to love it, it must have been lost and re- conquered. This it cannot do without suf- fering.(/07))