As things stand the
probabilities certainly are that a creature with such especial
characteristics as man has had a history altogether of his own, if not
from the beginning of all life upon the globe, yet from a very early
period in the development of that life. He resembles certain other
animals very closely in the structure of his body; but the part which
external conditions had to play in the earliest stages of evolution of
life must have been so exceedingly large that identity or close
similarity in these external conditions may well account for these
resemblances. And the enormous gap which separates his nature from that
of all other creatures known, indicates an exceedingly early difference
of origin.
Lastly, it is quite impossible to evolve the Moral Law out of anything
but itself. Attempts have been made, and many more will no doubt be
made, to trace the origin of the spiritual faculty to a development of
the other faculties. And it is to be expected that great success will
ultimately attend the endeavours to show the growth of all the
subordinate powers of the soul. That our emotions, that our impulses,
that our affections should have had a history, and that their present
working should be the result of that history, has nothing in it
improbable.
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