The antiquity of man from the point of view of religion : in answer to Mr. S. Laing's Modern science and modern thought / by F. Hugh Capron.

  • Capron, F. Hugh (Frederick Hugh), 1857-1955.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The antiquity of man from the point of view of religion : in answer to Mr. S. Laing's Modern science and modern thought / by F. Hugh Capron. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ‘ As regards Adam’s fall, the discovery of Palaeolithic man is that which has really given the greatest shock to received theological opinions ; for this discovery, which is an entirely new one of the last half century, though now confirmed by innumerable instances, not only flatly contradicts the narratives of recent descent from Adam and Noah, but it assails in its most vital point the whole dogma of Pauline Christianity. ‘ The two statements cannot both be true: one that man has fallen, the other that he has risen; one that he was created in God’s image, with high moral and religious faculties, and placed in a garden in a state of innocence and happiness, from which he fell by an act of disobedience, entailing a curse on his descendants only partially redeemed by the Atonement; the other, that he is the product of an evolution, tending ever upwards, over immense geological periods, from savages who chipped their rude flints on the banks of frozen rivers, chased the mammoth and the reindeer on the plains of Southern France, and held their cannibal feasts in caves, excavated by small streams, which ran loo feet above their present level. ‘ Which is true ? And can the book be inspired which gives a totally false account of such a vital matter? This is the real question. . .’ S. L.'UNG.