Then, again--if the world has not a Fall in its history, then we
must take the lowest condition as the one from which all have come;
and is that idea capable of defence? Do we see anywhere signs of an
upward process going on now? Have we any experience of a tribe
raising itself? Can you catch anywhere a race in the act of
struggling up, outside of the pale of Christianity? Is not the
history of all a history of decadence, except only where the Gospel
has come in to reverse the process?

But passing from this: What mean the experiences of the individual-these
longings; this hard toil; these sorrows?

How comes it that man alone on earth, manifestly meant to be leader,
lord, etc., seems but cursed with a higher nature that he may know
greater sorrows, and raised above the beasts in capacity that he may
sink below them in woe, this capacity only leading to a more
exquisite susceptibility, to a more various as well as more poignant
misery?

Whence come the contrarieties and discordance in his nature?

It seems to me that all this is best explained as the Bible explains
it by saying: (1) Sin has done it; (2) Sin is not part of God's
original design, but man has fallen; (3) Sin had a personal
beginning. There have been men who were pure, able to stand but free
to fall.

It seems to me that that explanation is more in harmony with the
facts of the case, finds more response in the unsophisticated