Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
would ultimately become man. Instead of the physical derivation of
the soul, we propose the spiritual derivation of the body.”
2. Some of the most important forms appear suddenly in the
geological record, without connecting links to unite them with the
past. The first fishes are the Ganoid, large in size and advanced
in type. There are no intermediate gradations between the ape and
man. Huxley, in Man’s Place in Nature, 94, tells us that the
lowest gorilla has a skull capacity of 24 cubic inches, whereas
the highest gorilla has 34-½. Over against this, the lowest man
has a skull capacity of 62; though men with less than 65 are
invariably idiotic; the highest man has 114. Professor Burt G.
Wilder of Cornell University: “The largest ape-brain is only half
as large as the smallest normal human.” Wallace, Darwinism,
458—“The average human brain weighs 48 or 49 ounces; the average
ape’s brain is only 18 ounces.” The brain of Daniel Webster
weighed 53 ounces; but Dr. Bastian tells of an imbecile whose
intellectual deficiency was congenital, yet whose brain weighed 55
ounces. Large heads do not always indicate great intellect.
Professor Virchow points out that the Greeks, one of the most
intellectual of nations, are also one of the smallest-headed of
all. Bain: “While the size of the brain increases in arithmetical
proportion, intellectual range increases in geometrical
proportion.”
Respecting the Enghis and Neanderthal crania, Huxley says: “The
fossil remains of man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to
take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form by the
modification of which he has probably become what he is.... In
vain have the links which should bind man to the monkey been
sought: not a single one is there to show. The so-called
_Protanthropos_ who should exhibit this link has not been
found.... None have been found that stood nearer the monkey than
the men of to-day.” Huxley argues that the difference between man
and the gorilla is smaller than that between the gorilla and some
apes; if the gorilla and the apes constitute one family and have a
common origin, may not man and the gorilla have a common ancestry
also? We reply that the space between the lowest ape and the
highest gorilla is filled in with numberless intermediate
gradations. The space between the lowest man and the highest man
is also filled in with many types that shade off one into the
other. But the space between the highest gorilla and the lowest
man is absolutely vacant; there are no intermediate types; no
connecting links between the ape and man have yet been found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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