Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/374

 involuntarily as a plant grows, but that being in Divine order, he willingly received that order through influx from the Creator, entered into it, and fulfilled it in himself.

The time that it took for this truly intellectual, moral, and spiritual development, it seems, need not have extended through ages, or even through many generations in arriving at a considerable degree of fulness with such as willed to receive, for the period of life was undoubtedly longer then than now, and the mind readily responded to the developing forces. That there was such an early development which started the human race with a Golden Age is corroborated by history, as well as by the Word and reason.

It was expected that the study of egyptology would result in establishing evidence of a civilization declining in ratio to its antiquity. But what can be more surprising to such expectations than to discover the exact reverse! The evidence is unmistakable that, more than four thousand years before Abraham, there was then a people not hewing rude implements out of stone, and immersed in savagery, but working in precious stones and gold with skill and art unsurpassed by the highest achievements of modern science. This shows a civilization then existing with tastes and culture since unexcelled. The periods sub-