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SOME NEGLECTED FACTS IN HUMAN BIOLOGICAL HISTORY

“STUDENTS of Human Physiology, Pathology and Dietetics have hitherto persistently ignored certain facts in man’s history which have a controlling influence on present conditions. To ignore these historical biological facts is as irrational as it would be to attempt to study the present civil institutions of our country and ignore our past history.

“In regard to man’s early biological history we have records of the highest credibility. There records are corroborated by all the facts within the reach of present observation. That present theories and speculations are contrary to them has no weight with a truly scientific mind, which cares for facts alone.

“These records do not inform us what was the method used in the creation of man. They thus leave the field open for interesting speculation as to whether it was by an evolutionary process or otherwise. We do learn that the first progenitors of the human race were perfect human beings, a man and a woman of the highest organization, both physical and mental, lacking in nothing except character, something which could only be developed by experience and the exercise of their faculties. We are also informed that the woman was developed from the man by the method of reproduction known as gemmation or budding; this, however, being an exceptional case, all subsequent reproduction in the human race being by the sexual method.

“This perfect human pair were placed in a perfect environment, called the garden of Eden, or Paradise. This was a small portion of the earth’s surface specially prepared for the abode of man, who was specially favored above the rest of the animal kingdom, having been endowed with an organization so much superior to that of any other animal that he possessed the powers of reason, conscience, imagination, generalization and free will to a high degree, thus making him an earthly image of spirit beings.

“So exalted an animal was worthy of a more prolonged existence than the lower animals, consequently

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he was endowed with the privilege of continued life on earth, being so constituted that as each cell of his structure became worn out and effete it was removed and a new cell put in its place, thus keeping his tissues always young and free from senile decay.

“The design of the Creator being that the human race should be ‘Sons of God’ and not merely ‘works of his hand’ like the lower animals, the announcement was made to Adam that the law of limited existence and death which he saw controlling the lower animals should not prevail against him or his offspring, but that he would be permitted to live on everlastingly in his perfect environment, provided he developed a character which would love and pursue righteousness and eschew evil; otherwise the gift of lasting life would be taken from him and he would be brought under the law of limited existence and death, everlasting life being a curse to an evil being and not a blessing.

“As we have seen, man, being a perfect being, endowed with the power of rejuvenating his tissues so that he could always remain young, was placed in a perfect environment, called Paradise. Here the climatic conditions were perfect, the sanitary conditions were perfect, and, last but not least, he was supplied with a perfect diet.

“As a simple and suitable commencement of the disciplinary training necessary to develop his character and test his obedience, he was placed under a single prohibition. He was given the ‘herb bearing seed’ for food and allowed to eat of the fruit of every tree in Paradise with one exception. ‘Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat;’ and he was warned that if he disobeyed this command he would surely die. Perhaps if man had not been influenced towards the wrong course he would have stood this simple first test successfully, but there was present a spirit being of a high order whom ambition and selfishness had led into rebellion. By a line of specious reasoning he succeeded in seducing Eve, ‘the

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weaker vessel,’ into a violation of the prohibition. Adam knew that the penalty for this was death; that his beloved and only congenial companion must cease to exist. Feeling that he would rather die than live without her, he also took of the forbidden fruit in order that he might share her penalty, preferring the nothingness of death to life without her who was his other self, ‘bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.’ We are expressly informed that ‘Adam was not deceived.’ What he did he did with his eyes open. In effect he committed suicide for love.

“The laws of God are unchangeable, and the penalty of death once threatened for this disobedience must be executed. Adam and Eve were put to death, within the limits of one of God’s ‘thousand year days,’ as He had said, ‘In the day that thou eatest thereof dying thou shalt die.’ God had made man on a plan which permitted continued existence in a suitable environment, and man would have continued to live on, even in sin and rebellion, if he could have remained in Paradise. In order to put the sentence of death into execution it was necessary to drive man out of Paradise into the ‘cursed’ or unfinished part of the earth ‘lest he put forth his hand and eat of the tree of life and live forever.’ In the unfinished earth he was exposed to climatic vicissitudes, to accidents and catastrophes, to the attacks of disease germs, to wearing and unwholesome forms of labor. Above all, he was deprived of his natural food.

“Since the day when Adam and Eve were driven from Eden, ‘the world being all before them where to choose,’ and the cherubim, armed with the revolving sword of flame, took its station at the gate, no human being, so far as we know, has ever tasted a mouthful of man’s natural food. Thus Adam and all his race have died, altho originally adapted to everlasting life on earth: Adam being put to death as the penalty of his sin, and all his posterity because the germs of the whole race being in Adam’s body when he commenced to die, by the natural law of heredity they could only receive what Adam had to give them, which was death and not life.

“These, then, are the controlling facts of man’s biological history, a life history which is not paralleled by that of any other animal, namely: the possession of an organism built so as to be capable of running on forever if surrounded by a special environment and supplied with a special food, but separated from his special environment and deprived of his special food by a judicial decree: and the medical profession will fail to solve the problems of pathology and dietetics as long as they ignore these facts. With man every condition is pathological, every environment is unnatural, every article of his diet is abnormal. That the race did not become extinct long ago can only be explained by the history given above.

“The mental condition of man depends upon the physical. There can be no mind without a body. Therefore, man’s mind is unsound as the inevitable result of his physical derangement. This is why man, altho endowed with reason, everywhere acts in an irrational manner. Some men are insane, but all men are of unsound mind. There have been only two human beings who possessed perfectly sound minds. One was Adam, but his mental and physical health continued for only a brief period, perhaps not more than one year. The other was Jesus, the Christ. Altho not of Adam’s race, he was a perfect human being; perfect mentally as well as physically. Imperfect men who attempt to conform their ideas and their conduct to his perfect standard are said by Paul to have the ‘spirit of a sound mind.’ It is the highest attainment of depraved humanity to have the spirit or disposition of a sound mind. Puck was fully justified by the facts when he exclaimed, ‘What fools these mortals be!’ Our weakened and unsound minds can make but little progress towards the truth on medical subjects or any other until we obtain ‘the spirit of a sound mind’ and endeavor to see man’s condition in its true light.

“I do not like to leave this subject without adding that the fall of man was foreseen and provided for in the Plan of God, and he has not changed in the least his purposes to have on earth a Paradise populated by perfect men. At the time appointed that purpose will be accomplished. The race of Adam will share in it, for altho the death sentence has been executed upon them and they have been consigned to the grave, they have been ransomed from the grave and will live again. All in Adam die, but all in Christ will be made alive in the future.

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“I can speak with positiveness on these points, thanks to the light thrown on these hitherto dark questions by that wonderful book, The Plan of the Ages. It is a key to that sublime treasury of facts, the Bible, enabling us to reduce its facts to a system, ‘having the completeness of a science, the precision of algebra.’ The author’s discovery of The Plan of the Ages has done for Bible phenomena what the discovery of the heliocentric character of the solar system did for astronomy. In another generation this will have displaced all other theology and philosophy as completely as the Copernican astronomy has displaced the Ptolemaic.” DAVID P. JACKSON, M.D.

In Toledo Medical and Surgical Reporter.

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— November 15, 1899 —