Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/254

250 must accept his teaching that the law of life is love, that service to others is the true guiding principle, that self-sacrifice even to death is the best trait a man can display. To many, evolution means the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence; and that is taken to imply that he selfish triumph, the most cruel and blood-thirsty are exalted, those who disregard others win. Obviously, this is the very anthithesisantithesis [sic] of Christianity; both principles cannot be true; one must be false. The Christian needs not to be told which of the two it is. Here is a real reason for opposition to evolution; men are not driven from it by the fear of discovering that their bodies are structurally like those of apes and monkeys; it doesn't bother us to discover that we are mammals, even odorous mammals—"by the sweat of your brow must man earn food" states the Bible. It does bother us to find the implication that the law of progress has thus apparently been opposed to the love of Christ. But here are the facts. It has been my privilege as a geologist to read the record in the rocks; knowing the ages of the rocks has led to better knowledge of the Rock of Ages; I have watched the procession of life on the long road from the one-celled bit of primitive protoplasm to the present assemblage of varied creatures, including man. At times of crisis in the past it was rarely selfishness or cruelty or strength of talon and of claw that determined success or failure. Survival values at different times have been measured in different terms. Ability to breathe air by means of lungs rather than to purify the blood by means of gills meant success in escaping from the water to the land. Love of offspring and tender care for the young gave the weak and puny mammals of long ago the ability to triumph over much stronger and more powerful reptiles like the dinosaur. Especially in the strain that leads to man can we note the increasing spread of habits of co-operation, of unselfishness of love. The survival of the "fit" does not necessarily mean either the survival of the "fittest" or of the "fightingest." It has meant in the past, and I believe it means today and tomorrow, the survival of those who serve others most unselfishly. Even in evolution is it true that he who would save his life must lose it. Here, if nowhere else, do the facts of evolution lead the man of science to stand shoulder to shoulder with the man of religion.

Another difficulty arises from our present limitations of knowledge. If man has evolved from other forms of animal life by the continuous process of evolution it is asked how can there be any difference between him and them, how can we believe that he has an immortal soul. Again, the appeal to facts makes it clear that somehow out of the continuity of process real differences have emerged. When the cow pauses on the hillside to admire the view, when the dog ceases to bay at the moon in order to construct a system of astronomy then and not till then will we believe that there are no differences between man and other animals. Even though we may not understand how these differences arose, the facts are there; knowledge and mystery exist side by side; mystery does not invalidate the fact. Men of science are working on those very problems. They have not learned—and may never learn how God breathed a living soul into man's body. If they discover that process and the method used, God will still be just as great a power. In the image of God cannot refer to hands or feet, heart, stomach, lungs. That may have been the conception of Moses; it certainly was not the conception of Christ who said that God is spirit, and proclaimed that man must worship Him in truth. It is man's soul, his spirit, which is patterned after God the Spirit.

It is the business of the theologian not the scientist to state just when and how man gained a soul. The man of science is keenly interested in the matter, but he should not be blamed if he cannot answer questions here. The theologian must tell when the individual gets his soul,