The greatest questions that man can ask are, "What am I?" "Whence came I?" and, "Whither am I going?" and of these the last is the most important. Darwinian evolutionists constantly endeavour to find a reply to the great question relating to man's future, and they continually set forth their views on the destiny of man. But it is the future of the race, and not of the individual, to which they refer. They talk of a coming time of peace and happiness, in which war shall not exist, crime shall almost disappear, and science shall reign supreme. The individual, however, answers," But what is to become of me? Am I as a self-conscious individual to have a self-conscious existence in the future, or to disappear like the collapse of a bubble on the surface of the ocean? Until evolution can answer this question, it can bring no real encouragement to man, and can inspire no hope to remove the burden of sorrow or the load of fear and disappointment.

Mr. Fiske writes as a Darwinian evolutionist, and sets forth his views on the course of human development in the past at some length. His style is charming, but his arguments are not convincing. He commences by comparing the Darwinian theory of evolution with the Copernican theory in astronomy, and declares that both are equally established by facts, and are equally harmonious with Christianity. To our mind, however, the parallel is utterly fallacious. The Copernican theory can be demonstrated, and is held by all astronomers. The Darwinian theory cannot be demonstrated, and is at best but a plausible hypothesis, while at the same time it is not held by all men of science. The Copernican theory, moreover, does not in any way affect the nature of man, his original sin, and the immortality of the soul; but a materialistic setting forth of Darwinism very seriously interferes with these great foundation truths. It is difficult, then, to see how the Copernican and Darwinian theories are in any way parallel. Mr. Fiske gives us a picture of the earliest men, which is exceedingly gloomy and uninviting. He says of these earliest members of the human family, " In respect of belligerency the earliest men were doubtless no better than brutes. They were simply the most crafty and formidable among brutes" (p. 77). Of the struggle for existence among primitive men, he says, "That struggle meant everlasting slaughter, and the fiercest races of fighters would be just the ones to survive and perpetuate their kind. . . . That moral sense which makes it seem wicked to steal and murder was scarcely more developed in them than in tigers and wolves" (p. 78). For this gloomy picture there is no evidence. The oldest men revealed to us by geology are those of the post-glacial period, and they were of a high mental type. They reverently buried their dead, and—as is shown by the discoveries at Solutré—they treated their aged relatives with reverence and affection, and they also believed in the immortality of the soul. There was no need whatever for universal warfare and "everlasting slaughter," for, as the earliest men lived on great continents, the weaker members simply moved away to

great distances from their stronger neighbours. Moreover, in whatever geological period we place the first men, there was an abundant supply of food-fish, flesh, and fowl-for all their needs. If man appeared on earth in the Pleistocene period, then at that time game and fish literally swarmed on the earth, and man's needs for food could be easily supplied. If, again, we select the Pliocene period (as Mr. Fiske seems inclined to do) as the era of man's appearance, then we find food equally plentiful. In fact, so far from the earliest times being a period of "everlasting slaughter and endless fighting, they must have been times of peace.

As (according to Mr. Fiske) the moral sense did not exist in the earliest men, it will be interesting to know how he considers that this faculty was acquired by man. He tells us that "rudimentary moral sentiments are discernible in the highest members of the mammalian orders" (p. 67); but this is a statement which, of course, is nothing but a mere assertion, and which cannot be proved; and we learn from him also that the family state originated the germs of conscience and the ideas of duty, which, therefore, must exist in the higher animals. It would be interesting to discover where the evidence exists which is supposed to show that primitive man had no moral sense. It does not exist in the world at present, since the lowest savages have a strong moral sense, and they also possess a perfect capacity for mastering and practising the teachings of the loftiest and purest morality. Nor can such evidence be produced from the past, for the oldest men (of the Palæolithic period) were reverent, devout, and affectionate. We presume that the statement that primitive man had no moral nature is merely made because evolution requires that it should be made, which is unfortunate for evolution, as the evidence is so strongly against the statement. Mr. Fiske makes another most extraordinary statement on this portion of the subject when he says, "In moral development the Australian, whose language contains no words for justice and benevolence, is less remote from dogs and baboons than from a Howard or a Garrison" (p. 72). This statement is perfectly amazing. The Australian possesses a capacity for embracing the sublimest Christian truths; and he does so through the teachings of Christian missionaries, and he practises those teachings in a life which is often as upright as the life of Europeans, whilst dogs and baboons possess no such capacity whatever. Precisely the same thing may be replied to the statement that intellectually the lowest savages are nearer to animals than they are to highly civilized men; for here again it is evident that the savage possesses a capacity by which he can acquire and develop the inventions of civilization, while the brute has no such capacity. This constitutes the intellectual chasm between man and the apes. We ought to be informed when the first beings worthy to be called men appeared, and on this question Mr. Fiske says, "The pyramids of Egypt seem things of yesterday when we think of the cave-men of Western Europe in the glacial period, who scratched pictures of mammoths on pieces of reindeer

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antler with a bit of pointed flint. Yet during an entire geologic on before these cave-men appeared on the scene, a being erect upon two legs," if we may quote from Serjeant Buzfuz, "and wearing the outward semblance of a man and not of a monster, wandered hither and thither over the face of the earth" (p. 55). If in this paragraph the words "glacial period" are taken in a limited sense, so that the glacial period is looked on as merely a subdivision of the Pleistocene era, then the "geologic æon" before the glacial period will be the pre-glacial era, in which no traces whatever of man or of manlike creatures can anywhere be discovered. If, however, we understand by the glacial era the whole of the Pleistocene epoch, then the geologic æon before it, to which Mr. Fiske refers, will be the Pliocene period. In this geologic æon traces of man are indeed found, but they are traces of real men, who are as truly men as the ordinary savage races now existing. If these Pliocene relics of man, on the other hand, are not genuine (as is probable), then there are no traces of man or of manlike creatures in the Pliocene period. It is thus always the same, wherever we turn in geology, no evidence can be produced in favour of the ape origin of man.

Mr. Fiske writes a chapter on "The Improvableness of Man," and he declares that this improvableness is "the most essential feature" of man (p. 71). But degradation and decay are features of equal power in human history, and it can be proved that existing savages have sunk into their present condition by degradation from a higher state which their ancestors enjoyed in former times. An ingenious theorist, by stringing together all the instances of decay and degradation which exist at present, and which have occurred in the past, could frame a very plausible theory to show that the human race is rapidly sinking into a melancholy condition of degradation and decay, and that it will ultimately become extinct. Psychical variations, our author informs us, have played the greatest part in the development of man; but until we know what these psychical variations are, and how they were brought about, we are unable to discuss them. We are, indeed, told by Mr. Fiske that the end of the working of natural selection in man will be the throwing off of the brute inheritance. Theology," he informs us, "has had much to say about original sin. This original sin is neither more nor less than the brute inheritance which every man carries with him, and the process of evolution is an advance toward true salvation" (p. 103). Here we have indeed a startling and novel theory of original sin; and how it is to be harmonized with the Christian doctrine of man's original purity and subsequent fall, and how it is also to be harmonized with the teachings of conscience which declare that this original sin is a fault in man, we cannot for a moment comprehend. And yet this throwing off of the brute inheritance is called, by Mr. Fiske, pure Christianity, because it sets forth St. Paul's conception of the two men warring within him! The Christian doctrine is that man's evil nature originated through his transgression, that man was

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perfectly unable to deliver himself by any natural processes of progress or evolution, and that the incarnation of the Son of God was necessary before man could be raised from the moral degradation into which he had sunk. How these teachings can be harmonized with the modern evolutionary view of man's incessant upward progress both mentally and morally, we are quite unable to determine. Like all evolutionists, Mr. Fiske looks forward to a glorious time in the future when warfare shall cease, when crime shall not exist, and when disease shall be curbed. But in this bright future sorrow must be present, bereavement will inflict its wounds, and moral irregularities will continue to make men miserable. The Christian, indeed, believes in a coming happy era; but it is to be brought about, not by merely unaided human progress, but by Divine intervention through the return of the Son of God.

Mr. Fiske believes that there is nothing in the progress of modern science to negative the belief in the immortality of the soul. In this we heartily agree with him, but we wish that he had told us what science has to say in favour of this belief. Many persons find a belief in human immortality very hard to reconcile with an acceptance of a materialistic theory of evolution, and it would be well if they could receive some scientific assistance in their difficulties. The questions of the destiny and origin of man can never be decided by a mere study of natural history and comparative anatomy, and the only available light that can be thrown on these tremendous problems-apart from revelation-must come from mental and moral philosophy.

CURRENT AMERICAN THOUGHT.

THE SOCIAL ETHICS OF JESUS. By Professor JOHN S. SEWALL, D.D. (The Bibliotheca Sacra).-Was Jesus a Social Reformer? Was the renovation of society the special object of His mission? Did He come to regenerate the individual, or to rectify the community? He came to the disturbed conditions of society in Palestine of the Roman period. He appeared to be eminently qualified for correcting social evils; and yet He did not work along these lines.

Jesus did not enter upon the rôle of the statesman or of the political economist. We look in vain for legislation. He enacts no code. He leads no party. We look in vain for any system of associated charities, or any great organized philanthropy bearing His name, and spreading through all lands in memory of His pity and love. The Master never interfered with the constitution of things as He found them in vogue in His day. Such terms as "communism," "chartism," "landlordism," "nationalization of land," "anti-monopoly," "competition," "co-operation," and the like, are foreign to His dialect.

Whatever was His errand, Jesus evidently did not set up as a Social Agitator. It was no part of His plan to storm the social problem by direct assault. He was not operating down among the details. He was arranging a campaign of great forces under which the details would work themselves out in good time. His whole attention was

concentrated upon the founding of a spiritual kingdom. This was not to be some kind of ghostly Utopia, but a present practical union of renovated hearts and lives. The one aim of the kingdom is to produce right character. Therefore it works upon persons, one by one. It plies the soul with motives. Its aim is the purification of

the heart and the rectification of the life.

As if to show the world some external symbol of these inner transformations, Jesus applies His power here and there to some of the ravages of sin. Miracles of mercy radiate from His Divine Person. The forces of His kingdom, beginning with the spiritual, would reach out into the physical and secular, would pervade and sweeten every province of life, and would repair the damages that come by sin. Set up the kingdom, and in time it would carry all other good with it. In founding a spiritual empire Jesus set in motion causes which start with the individual, and through the individual reach out into society. So far as Christianity transforms an atom, that atom helps to transform the mass of which it is a unit. And thus is gradually progressing the moral disinfection of the world, and the moral integration of humanity.

He taught the universal Fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of man. Every man is neighbour to every other man. A man is a man, and therefore all men are his fellows. For the law of this fraternity Jesus adopted the golden rule. Nothing could be more unlike the codes by which men have usually been governed. The golden rule says, "If a man is a brother, treat him as a brother." Admit the golden rule, and there is an end of slavery, of fraud, of ruinous competition, etc. Put society under the golden rule, and every man is bound to consider not his own rights and interests alone, but the welfare of the rest of the world. Jesus made of this rule something more than a command. He carried it up into the region of motive. He elevated it into a principle and a sentiment. And He widened out the precept till it should include not the neighbour only, but also the enemy. The Master at a stroke dispels our sophistries, and shows us that our discords and brawls with one another are so petty, so low, so inhuman, that they do not and cannot annul the real unity of the Here lies the explanation of the difficult precepts about non-resistance. What Jesus is aiming at is to get lodged in the human heart the great idea of mutual forbearance. And to make an impression sufficiently vivid, He sets forth examples which are too paradoxical to mislead, and yet startling enough to compel the attention of the world. He shows therein His purpose to get the lex talionis out of human history, and to substitute for it the law of kindness.

race.

In Christ's kingdom the golden rule rises into the Christian law of service. Not self-aggrandizement, not self-exaltation, not place and position, and power to lord it over one's fellow-subjects—these are not the prizes of the kingdom; but that selfdevotion which shall inspire one to spend and be spent for his fellow-men. This is the humility that shall be exalted. Why are men placed in high station? Not for the rank and emoluments, but for the enlarged opportunities of service.

How did Jesus intend His disciples should work out these principles and apply them to the successive conditions that might arise? His method was that of spiritual evolution; the method of the leaven. Implant certain forces in the mind, and let them work. Magnetize the human will, and of its own accord it will point to the pole. The unit of society is the family. Jesus draws up no code of ethics for the family. If the family conforms to the principles of the kingdom, He knows that all these special lines of the common life will go of themselves. To the rich His message is one of admonition-always earnest, sometimes sharp and stern. He looks upon them as living on a wrong theory, and as in grave spiritual danger. In the main our Lord's ministrations were to the poor, the working classes, the wage-earners.