The rocks formed of the shells of animals testify that death is a phenomenon thousands of thousand years old: to refer the death of animals to the sin of Adam and Eve is evidently impossible.

Yet, if not, the analogies of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible that man's body can ever have been intended for immortality.

Nay, when we consider the conditions of birth and growth to which it is subject, the wear and tear essential to life, the new generations intended to succeed and supplant the old,--so soon as the question is proposed as one of physiology, the reply is inevitable that death is no accident introduced by the perverse will of our first parents, nor any way connected with man's sinfulness; but is purely a result of the conditions of animal life.

On the contrary, St.Paul rests most important conclusions on the fact, that one man Adam by personal sin brought death upon all his posterity.

If this was a fundamental error, religious doctrine also is shaken.
In various attempts at compromise,--such as conceding the Scriptural fallibility in human science, but maintaining its spiritual perfection,--I always found the division impracticable.