f evolution.

The Rev. Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, than whom no English-speaking scholar
carries more weight in a matter of this kind, has recently declared his
belief that the Chaldaeo-Babylonian theory was the undoubted source of
the similar theory propounded by the Ionic philosopher Anaximander--the
Greek thinkers deriving this view from the Babylonians through the
Phoenicians; he also allows that from the same source its main features
were adopted into both the accounts given in the first of our
sacred books, and in this general view the most eminent Christian
Assyriologists concur.

It is true that these sacred accounts of ours contradict each other. In
that part of the first or Elohistic account given in the first chapter
of Genesis the WATERS bring forth fishes, marine animals, and birds
(Genesis, i, 20); but in that part of the second or Jehovistic account
given in the second chapter of Genesis both the land animals and birds
are declared to have been created not out of the water, but "OUT OF THE
GROUND" (Genesis, ii, 19).

The dialectic skill of the fathers was easily equal to explaining away
this contradiction; but the old current of thought, strengthened by both
these legends, arrested their attention, and, passing through the
minds of a succession of the greatest men of the Church, influenced
theological opinion deeply, if not widely, for ages, in favour of an
evolution theory.

But there was still another ancient source of evolution ideas.
Thoughtful men of the early civilizations which were developed along the
great rivers in the warmer regions of the earth noted how the sun-god as
he rose in his fullest might caused the water and the rich soil to teem
with the lesser forms of life. In Egypt, especially, men saw how
under this divine power the Nile slime brought forth "creeping things
innumerable." Hence mainly this ancient belief that the animals and
man were produced by lifeless matter at the divine command, "in the
beginning," was supplemented by the idea that some of the lesser
animals, especially the insects, were produced by a later evolution,
being evoked after the original creation from various sources, but
chiefly from matter in a state of decay.

This crude, early view aided doubtless in giving germs of a better
evolution theory to the early Greeks. Anaximander, Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, and, greatest of all, Aristotle, as we have seen, developed
them, making their way at times by guesses toward