It was expressed in the schools by saying that Universalia are ante rem. The other form of the doctrine asserts that the Universalia are in re. That is that the universals exist only in the individuals; and that the individuals alone are real. "L'identité des individus,' says Cousin in his exposition of this form of the doctrine, "d'un même genre ne vient pas de leur essence même, car cette essence est différente en chacun d'eux, mais de certains éléments qui se retrouvent dans tous ces individus sans aucune différence, indifferenter. Cette nouvelle théorie diffère de la première en ce que les universaux ne sont plus l'essence de l'être, la substance même des choses; mais elle s'en rapproche en ce que les universaux existent réellement, et qu'existant dans plusieurs individus sans différence, ils forment leur identité et par là leur genre." Again, he says, "Le principe de la nouvelle théorie est que l'essence de chaque chose est leur individualité, que les individus seuls existent, et qu'il n'y a point en dehors des individus d'essence appelées les universaux, les espèces et les genres; mais que l'individu lui-même contient tout cela, selon les divers points de vue sous lequels on le considére." Thus Socrates as an individual man has his own essence, which, with its peculiarities, makes him Socrates. Neglect those peculiarities and consider him as rational and mortal, then you have the idea of species; neglect rationality and mortality, and consider him as an animal, then you have the idea of the genus; neglect all these forms ("relictis omnibus formis"), and you have only the idea of substance. According to this view "les espèces et les genres, les plus élevés comme les plus inférieurs, sont les individus euxmêmes, considérés sous divers point de vue." This, according to the plain sense of the terms, amounts to the common doctrine. Individuals alone exist. Certain individuals have some distinguishing properties or attributes in common. They constitute a particular species. These and other individuals of different species have other properties common to them all, and they constitute a genus, and so orders, and classes, until we get to the highest category of being, which includes all. But if all beings are assumed to be one substance, which substance with certain added qualities or accidents constitutes a class, with certain other additions, an order, with still further modifications, a genus, a species, an individual, then we have the old theory back again, only extended so as to have a pantheistic aspect.

1 Fragments Philosophiques, p. 162.

2 Ibid, p. 168.

3 See the exposition by Abélard himself quoted on page 170 of Cousin. 4 Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, p. 183.

Some scientific men, instead of defining species as a group of individuals having certain characteristics in common, say with Professor Dana, that it "corresponds to the specific amount or condition of concentred force, defined in the act or law of creation ;" or with Dr. Morton, that it is "a primordial organic form;" or with Agassiz, that it is an original immaterial principle which determines the form or characteristics of the individuals constituting a distinct group. These are only different modes of accounting for the fact that all the individuals of a given species have certain characteristics or fundamental qualities in common. To such statements there is no objection. But when it is assumed that these original primordial forms, as in the case of humanity, for example, are by the law of propagation transmitted from generation to generation, so as to constitute all the individuals of the species essentially one, that is, one in essence or substance, so that the act of the first individual of the species (of Adam, for example) being the act of the substance numerically the same in all the members of that species, is the act of each individual member, then something essentially new is added to the above given scientific definition of species, and we return to the original and genuine form of Realism in its most offensive features. It would be easy to show, (1st.) that generation or the law of propagation both in plants and in animals is absolutely inscrutable; as much so as the nature of matter, mind, or life, in themselves considered. We can no more tell what generation is, than what matter is, or what mind is. (2d.) That it is therefore unreasonable and dangerous to make a given theory as to the nature of generation or the law of propagation the basis for the explanation of Christian doctrines. (3d.) That whatever may be the secret and inscrutable process of propagation, it does not involve the transmission of the same numerical essence, so that a progenitor and his descendants are one and the same substance. This assumption is liable to all the objections already urged against the original form of the realistic doctrine. The theory is moreover destitute of all evidence either from experience or analogy. There is no conceivable sense in which all the oaks now on the earth are identical as to their substance with the oaks originally created. And there is no conceivable sense in which we and all mankind are identically the same substance with Adam. If a thousand candles are successively lighted from one candle they do not thereby become one candle. There is not a communication of the substance of the first to the second, and of the second to the others in their order, so as to make it in any

sense true that the substance of the first is numerically the same with that of all the others. The simple fact is that by the laws of matter ordained by God, the state in which a lighted candle is, produces certain changes or movements in the constituent elements of the wick of another candle when the two are brought into contact, which movements induce other movements in the constituent particles of the surrounding atmosphere, which are connected with the evolution of light and heat. But there is no communication of substance involved in the process. An acorn which falls from an oak to-day, is composed not of the same particles of matter from which the original acorn was formed, but of matter of the same kind, and arranged in the same way. It may be said to be imbued with chemical and vital forces of the same kind with the original acorn, but not with numerically the same forces. So of all plants and animals. We are of the same nature with Adam in the same sense that all animals of one species are the same. The sameness does not consist in numerical identity of essence or of vital forces, or of reason or will, but in the sameness of kind and community of origin.

Besides the origin and the nature of man, there are two other questions, which are more or less involved in what the Scriptures teach concerning mankind, and which demand attention before we turn to the moral and religious condition of the race. The first of these concerns the Origin of the Soul, and the second the Unity of the Race.

CHAPTER III.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUL.

§ 1. Theory of Preexistence.

THREE theories have been advanced as to the origin of the soul. First, that of the Preëxistence of the soul; secondly, that of Traduction, or the doctrine that the soul of the child is derived from the soul of the parent; thirdly, that of immediate Creation, or the doctrine that the soul is not derived as the body is, but owes its existence to the creative power of God.

The doctrine of the preëxistence of the soul has been presented in two forms. Plato held that ideas are eternal in the divine mind; that these ideas are not mere thoughts, but living entities; that they constitute the essence and life of all external things; the universe and all it contains are these ideas realized, clothed in matter, and developed in history. There was, thus an ideal, or intelligible world, anterior to the world as actually existing in time. What Plato called ideas, Aristotle called forms. He denied that

the ideal was anterior to the actual. Matter is eternal, and all things consist of matter and form - by form being meant that which gives character, or determines the nature of individual things. As in other respects, so also in this, the Platonic, or Aristo-Platonic philosophy, had much influence on Christian Theology. And some of the fathers and of the schoolmen approached more or less nearly to this doctrine of the preëxistence, not only of the soul, but of all things in this ideal world. St. Bernard, in his strenuous opposition to nominalism, adopted the Platonic doctrine of ideas, which he identified with genera and species. These ideas, he taught, were eternal, although posterior to God, as an effect is in the order of nature after its cause. Providence applies the idea to matter, which becomes animated and takes form, and thus ("du monde intelligible est sorti le monde sensible ") "ex mundo intelligibili mundus sensibilis perfectus natus est ex perfecto." 1 Among modern writers, Delitzsch comes nearest to this Platonic doctrine. He says, "Es giebt nach der Schrift eine Präexistenz 1 Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, pp. 172-176.

des Menschen und zwar eine ideale ; . . . . eine Präexistenz vermöge welcher Mensch und Menschheit nicht blos ein fernzukünftiges Object göttlicher Voraussicht, sondern ein gegenwärtiges Object göttlicher Anschauung sind im Spiegel der Weisheit. Nicht blos Philosophie und falschberühmte Gnosis, sondern auch die Schrift weiss und spricht von einer göttlichen Idealwelt, zu welcher sich die Zeitwelt wie die geschichtliche Verwirklichung eines ewigen Grundrisses verhält.1 That is, "There is according to the Scriptures, an ideal preëxistence of man; a preëxistence in virtue of which man and humanity are contemplated by the divine omniscience not merely as objects lying far off in the future, but as present in the mirror of his wisdom. Not only philosophy and the so called Gnosis, but also the Scriptures recognize and avow a divine ideal world to which the actual world stands related as the historical development of an eternal conception." It is doubtful, however, whether Delitzsch meant much more by this than that the omniscience of God embraces from eternity the knowledge of all things possible, and that his purpose determined from eternity the futurition of all actual events, so that his decree or plan as existing in the divine mind is realized in the external world and its history. The mechanist has in his mind a clear conception of the machine which he is about to make. But it is only by a figure of speech that the machine can be said to preëxist in the artist's mind. This is very different from the Platonic and Realistic theory of preëxist

ence.

Origen's Doctrine.

Preëxistence, as taught by Origen, and as adopted here and there by some few philosophers and theologians, is not the Platonic doctrine of an ideal-world. It supposes that the souls of men had a separate, conscious, personal existence in a previous state; that having sinned in that preëxistent state, they are condemned to be born into this world in a state of sin and in connection with a material body. This doctrine was connected by Origen with his theory of an eternal creation. The present state of being is only one epoch in the existence of the human soul. It has passed through innumerable other epochs and forms of existence in the past, and is to go through other innumerable such epochs in the future. He held to a metempsychosis very similar to that taught by Orientals both ancient and modern. But even without the encumbrance of this idea of the endless transmutation of the soul, the doctrine itself has never been adopted in the Church. It 1 Biblische Psychologie, p. 23.