Man in Genesis and in Geology: Or, the Biblical Account of Man's Creation Tested By Scientific Theories of His Origin and Antiquity

New York: Samuel P. Wells, 1870. Small Octavo. 119 pages. The debate on evolution was crossing scientific, political and religious lines. Yet it was not until 1871 that Darwin's Descent of Man would be published. Here Joseph P. Thompson would write: "in the present state of science, I may safely lay down the postulate that Man had a beginning and that Nature is not proved adequate to have caused that beginning." So initially many in the Christian world were not troubled by The Origin of Species. This book appeared just before Darwin's second bombshell appeared and now you had those who condemned that man had evolved as well as the vast majority of scientists and theologians who accepted Darwin as authoritative. Even Alfred Russell Wallace felt there was a miraculous element that could not be accounted to by science alone. When Darwin's book was read by the leaders of Princeton, Yale, Columbia and virtually every other institution it was condemned. The charge was led by Charles Hodge, Princeton's most able theologian but many in the scientific community now had placed man as having evolved also. In 1884 James Woodrow (Woodrow Wilson's uncle) accepted evolution and was forced to resign from his professorship at Columbia Theological Seminary. This early book was an important attempt fo find what became a mediating position that would not satisfy either those who bought Darwin's theory in its entirety nor those who condemned it as an unscientific and atheistic attack on Christianity. Bound in grown cloth lettered and decorated in gilt, spine lettering gilt, An ex-library copy with only a bookplate on front pastedown, light chipping to head, tiny nick to spine, corner wear, boards just a bit warped. A good copy.