The Story of Creation as Told By Theology and By ScienceAckland, T. S. (Thomas Suter)
Religion
The Story of Creation as Told By Theology and By Science
Ackland, T. S. (Thomas Suter)
Bible and science; Creation; Religion and science
As then we can have no direct knowledge of the moral and
intellectual powers of animals, we can only judge of them from
their actions, and other external signs. One great mark of
difference has already been noticed. Man has, other animals have
not, the power of laying up an external treasure of intellectual
acquirements. Then there are certain arts which seem to be
indispensable to man in his lowest state--no savage is so low that
he is utterly destitute of them--no animal makes any pretence to
them. Such are the designing, construction, and use of tools. Mr.
Darwin asserts that in certain cases--very rare ones--apes have
been known to use stones to break open nuts; but the mere use of a
stone is a very different thing from the conception and deliberate
formation of a tool, however rude. Then there is the kindling of
fire, and the use of it for the purpose of cooking; and lastly,
the preparation and the wearing of clothes. The tools or the
clothes may be of the rudest kind, the tools may be formed from a
flint, and the clothes from bark or skin, but in the preparation
of each there are signs of intellectual power, of which we find no
indications whatever in the lower animals.
Another important difference between man and all other animals
lies in the fact, that whatever an animal does it does perfectly
from the first, but it makes no improvements. A bird's first nest
is perfect. With man the case is the reverse, it is only by many
trials, many failures, that he attains to skill in any operation,
but then he goes forward. Arts improve from generation to
generation. This seems to show that the faculties of man differ
from those of animals in kind, and not in degree only.
The question also arises, if man has been produced from an
anthropomorphous ape by a process of natural development, how is
it that the same process has not gone on in other lines? The dog,
the horse, and the elephant are at least equal in intelligence and
sagacity to the highest known apes. Such a development from them
cannot have proceeded through the line of the apes. If these
different orders are at all connected it must be through some
remote common ancestor. Why then has this development come to an
abrupt termination in some cases and not in all? It may indeed be
said that the dog and the horse are indebted for their
intelligence to the inherited results of long intercourse with
man, but this cannot be the case with the elephant, which is never
known to breed in captivity. Nor is there any reason to believe
that the present intelligence of the elephant is recently
developed. Why then has it been arrested in its course?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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