Some prominent theologians, both ancient and modern, have adopted the doctrine of traduction as opposed to that of creationism, believing the latter to be contrary to philosophy and revelation, but the former to be in harmony with both. In Wesley’s Journal, Vol. v., p. 10, is found the following entry:-- “I read and abridged an old work on the origin of the soul. I never before saw anything on the subject so satisfactory. I think the author proves to a demonstration that God has enabled man, as all other creatures, to propagate his whole specie, consisting of soul and body.” The testimony of Richard Watson (Institutes, pp. 362, 3) is equally explicit. He says:-- “A question as to the transmission of this corruption of nature from parents to children has been debated among those who, nevertheless, admit the fact; some contending that the soul is _ex traduce_; others that it is by immediate creation. It is certain that, as to the metaphysical part of this question, we can come to no satisfactory conclusion. The Scriptures, however, appear to be more in favor of traduction. ‘Adam begat a son in his own likeness.’ ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh,’ which refers certainly to the soul as well as to the body.... The tenet of the soul’s descent appears to have most countenance from the language of Scripture, and it is no small confirmation of it, that when God designed to incarnate his own Son, he stepped out of the ordinary course, and formed a sinless human nature immediately by the power of the Holy Ghost.” The evidence is thus rendered conclusive from both reason and Scripture, that the soul is transmitted through the process of generation with the body. What then, we ask again, becomes of its immortality? For “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and mortality cannot generate itself to a higher plane and beget immortality. This is not saying that mind is matter; for the results of organization are not to be confounded with the matter of which the organization is composed. CHAPTER IX. WHO KNOWETH? With these words Solomon introduces, in Eccl. 3:21, a very important question respecting the spirit of man. He says: “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” Deeming this a good foundation, the advocates of natural immortality proceed to build thereon. They take it to be, first, a positive declaration that the spirit of man does go up, and the spirit of the beast downward to the earth. Then the superstructure is easily erected: Thus, Solomon must have believed that man had a spirit capable of a separate and conscious existence in death; and this spirit, in the hour of dissolution, ascends up on high, and goes into the presence of God. It therefore survives the stroke of death, and is consequently immortal.