It is sometimes maintained by thinkers who account themselves progressive that the law of evolution holds good of mankind so far as our physical constitution is concerned, but that a special act of creation took place as soon as the physical frame was sufficiently developed to become the receptacle of a higher principle, and that then, and not till then, "man became a living soul." But it is impossible to square the circle in this way, and to contrive to get the doctrine of the Fall in by the back door, so to speak. The idea in the minds of those who hold this view appears to be that the tenant of the body which had been so long in preparation was a simple but intelligent and morally innocent personality who forthwith proceeded to do all that Adam is credited with and therefore spoiled what would otherwise have been a harmonious and orderly development; what we now see is not evolution as God meant it, but evolution perverted by human wrong-headedness. But this theory contains more difficulties than the older one it aims to replace. It makes God even more incompetent then the traditional view does. For untold ages, apparently, He has been preparing the world for the advent of humanity, only to find that the moment humanity enters it the whole scheme is spoiled. But we need not seriously consider this view; the facts are overwhelmingly against it. The history, even of the most recent civilisations, is, comparatively speaking, only as old as yesterday, whereas the presence of human life on this planet is traceable into the almost illimitable past. But the farther we go back in our investigation of human origins the less possible does it appear that the primitive man of theological tradition has ever existed. The Adam of the dogmatic theologian is like the economic man of the older school of writers on political science, the man who always wants to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, and whose one consistent endeavour is to seek pleasure and avoid pain; he has never existed.