It may be proper to add here that in his references to Adam, Haeckel betrays a weakness not unusual with his school, in putting a false gloss on the old record of Genesis. The statement that man was formed from the dust of the ground implies no more than the production of his body from the common materials employed in the construction of other animals; this also in contradistinction from the higher nature derived from the inbreathing or inspiration of God. The precise nature of the method by which man was made or created is not stated by the author of Genesis. Further, it would have been as easy for Divine Power to create a pair as an individual. If this was not done, and if after the lesson of superiority taught by the inspection of lower animals, and the lesson of language taught by naming them, the first man in his "deep sleep" is conscious of the removal of a portion of his own flesh, and then on awaking has the woman "brought" to him, all this is to teach a lesson not to be otherwise learned. The Mosaic record is thus perfectly consistent with itself and with its own doctrine of creation by Almighty Power.
I have quoted the above passages as examples of the more jocose vein of the Jena physiologist; but they constitute also a serious revelation of the influence of his philosophy on his own mind and heart, in lowering both to a cold, mechanical, and unsympathetic view of man and nature. This is especially serious when we remember how earnestly in a recent address he advocated the teaching of the methods and results of this book, as those which, in the present state of knowledge, should supersede the Bible in our schools. We may well say, with his great opponent on that occasion, that if such doctrines should be proved to be true, the teaching of them might become a necessity, but one that would bring us face to face with the darkest and most dangerous moral problem that has ever beset humanity; and that so long as they remain unproved it is both unwise and criminal to propagate them among the mass of men as conclusions which have been demonstrated by science.
In conclusion, we may notice shortly a few of the consequences of the monistic evolution as held by Haeckel and others. Doctrines are perhaps not to be judged by the consequences--at least, by the immediate consequences--of their acceptance. Yet if their logical consequences are such as to introduce confusion into our higher ideas and sentiments, we have reason to hesitate as to their adoption--if on no other ground, because we ourselves are a part of nature and should be in harmony with any true explanation of it.