The Evolution of Dogma

It is crystal clear that there is evolution in the sense of movement and change. To see this one has only to look for a moment to the reality of history--that is, the discovery of history--was a far more radical one than the discovery of evolution in nature. Troeltsch in particular wrestled all his life with the problems engendered by this discovery. Of particular importance is the fact that all values and norms in becoming individual historical phenomena are made relative. At the same time, however, they become absolute because they cannot be repeated in their very uniqueness. This historizing is carried to the ultimate and to the most central of all things: the articulate expression of salvation-- the very things of God, so to say, the dogma. For it appears there is an evolution of dogma also. Dogma has not always been the very same: it too goes through a process of change. Has it then perhaps become relative? Can it still be dogma in that case?

In 1845 Newman wrote his book An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. This was no less than fourteen years before the year which we celebrate here [the date of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species , 1859. Ed. note]. In this respect Christianity has not lagged behind the times. As a matter of fact, even in the Continental Protestant theology of the nineteenth century one discovers, against the backdrop of romanticism and idealism, the conception of the evolutionary character of truth--or at least of the knowledge of truth. Initially, this was the case particularly in the instance of Hegel's way of thinking. With Hegel, the history of doctrine came into being as a theological discipline. It took the place of a theology determined by controversy and by apologetical concerns. In the Netherlands we can even witness how dogmatics became, by civil law, separated from the history of doctrine. The former then was in danger of becoming like a fish squirming out of the water of historical relativity on the beach of absolute truth.

In any case, Protestant theology had taken the way of least resistance and the general opinion was that dogma became invalid once its historical nature was discovered. Roman Catholic theology showed greater wisdom and maturity in this respect. It commenced to reflect on the problem which now has arisen. How could one understand the historical character of dogma while recognizing its revealed content? In recent decades Roman Catholic theology has dealt with this question in a rather thorough manner. One has the feeling that the crisis of Modernism has been overcome. The dialectical or scholastic solutions to the problem no longer seem adequate. The search is now for other, more dynamic and vital, and particularly also, supernaturally structured, solutions.

It is not my intention to report on the various ways in which the Roman Catholic theologians have struggled with the problem. That would carry us too far afield, firstly, because of the divergencies of various solutions, and secondly, because of the rather complex character of each of these solutions. Besides, our Roman Catholic brethren start from certain presuppositions which are, and not without reason, rather alien to us. I am thinking particularly of the scheme of nature and supernature and of the concentration of infallibility in the teaching authority of the office. For that reason it seems more fruitful to me to attempt to deal with this problem independently. I do this to some extent against the backdrop of the Roman Catholic problematic. I intend to scrutinize the presuppositions with which one can and must operate in the consideration of this problem.

Let us take a closer look at the problem. How great a problem arises if one discovers the evolution and the historical nature of dogma? As I see it, one has to give a threefold answer to this question. The evolution of dogma is, in the first place, a problem because of the fact that revelation was completed in Jesus Christ. This is indeed the basic theme of the New Testament: God has at last spoken through His Son and in Him He has expressed Himself. This theme is characteristic of almost the whole of Christianity: it points to one man, one name, one historical fact. In Jesus Christ God has given His definitive revelation since He has given Himself.

As far as I can see, this is the theological significance of the problem. On one hand, one sees the historical development of dogma, but, on the other, it is taken seriously that the Christian faith is historically anchored. Thus although anchored in history on one certain historical fact, one is, so to speak, adrift, taking one's course on the stream of history, thinking and speaking about historical fact and the salvation given with it.

This paradoxical understanding of the problem becomes somewhat more complicated when one realizes that one does not say enough by stating the completeness of the revelation in Jesus Christ. We can enter into this revelation only by a means of the witness of the evangelists and the apostles. Therefore, we have to qualify the original formulation with the following one: the completeness of the revelation in apostolic time. This accent immediately appeals to theologians of the Reformed tradition, since it underlines the unique significance of the Bible, of the canonical Holy Scripture, and particularly the New Testament.

Having said this, we introduce a new factor. The revelation in Jesus Christ is reality, act, life, presence of God. But the witness of the evangelists and the apostles was expressed in words. Consequently the revelation became something articulated. In this process definitions were born. What value and how much authority do these words have? They are words of revelation. How then is this original apostolic witness related to the words of later dogma?

If one really adheres to the completeness of the revelation in the apostolic era, is not one, then, forced to conclude to the concept of an identity of content of later dogma with the original witness? This leads us to a second answer to the question why the evolution of dogma raises a problem for us at all. The question at stake is whether and how we can prove that we still are the selfsame Church. This is a peculiar problem, and a very important variation of the whole ecumenical concern of the Church. As a rule we think about the question of unity and identity of the Church in terms of space, insofar as it pertains to the whole inhabited world today. However, in the problem of the evolution of dogma a different notion arises. We have to consider the unity of and the identity of the Church in the dimension of time. The ecumenical movement in the ordinary sense of the word encounters this problem in many areas, both in relation to the confession and in relation to the office, church order, liturgy, and discipline. Even when considering the ecumenical problem from missionary and apostolic side one runs into this question. One notices this immediately in formulating the question as to how we can prove that we still are the apostolic Church today so many centuries after the apostles. One can never separate the actual and eschatologically orientated apostolate from the original apostolate. Besides, one cannot simply pass over those figures who stand out during the centuries between then and now. There is at least a successio apostolicae doctrinae (apostolic doctrinal succession). Or better: everything points to such a succession. The question is, Is there really one?

This then, in the third place, is a very urgent matter in view of the fact that the Church--by which is meant Christendom--understands itself as that body to which God has given great promises and great tasks. The Church is the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is the task of the Church to mediate salvation, to pronounce truth, to hold the keys of the heavenly kingdom. The Church is entrusted to the infallible leadership of the Holy Spirit. In her the authority of divine salvation and divine truth is embodied in the world. The Church is the bride of Christ and she is consequently in a very special situation. That is to say, the Church is not purely human and cannot, roughly speaking, err. In her dogma the Church cannot and should not substantially deviate from the apostolic witness.

Related to this insight is another one. Dogma, since it is an expression of the redeeming truth and reality, has soteriological significance. Man and the world can as little do without dogma in their individual as in their communal existence. This brings up still another very important aspect of the problem of the evolution of dogma, How could people have done without dogma prior to the time in which it was formulated? How could these people have been in the state of salvation? How could they have possibly entered into that state? These questions are all the more urgent if one realizes that salvation in the sense of beatitudo (beatitude) consists in gaudium de veritate (joy of truth). Besides, there is the question, How could they have served God? Serving God is active existence in the categories of truth. Is it conceivable that the Church did not always have the whole truth? And is it not a fact that the Church erred for centuries, at least when considered from the viewpoint of the latter fixation of dogma? Was it possible to have a purely Trinitarian life and thought previous to A.D. 381 and a purely Christological life and thought before 451 and a purely predestinarian life and thought before 1619? How should one see all these things in the light of the fact that the Church is the bride of Christ and that the joy of truth is essential for salvation and for the service of God?

The question is whether one can prove strictly, historically speaking, that the Church of all ages always believed the same as far as the heart of the matter is concerned. No one would say that. Can one then perhaps arrive at this conclusion dialectically--by seeing that the evolution of dogma is nothing but a development of that which was logically implicit in dogma? Can one say that the Church from the beginning contained the whole truth in an implicit manner? Drawing this conclusion, one should argue the unity and identity of the Church in the dimension of time by forging a chain of logical development connecting the Church of today with that of the apostolic witness. However, many Roman Catholic theologians are no longer satisfied with this dialectical solution of the problem. They take a third road, the so-called theological way. Once again some basic concepts of Mohler and Newman become relevant. In a nutshell, one can summarize what is at stake in this third way by saying that the Church's possession of truth is primarily a supernatural matter--in accordance with the nature of the Church and in accordance with the nature of the created reality which is embraced by the order of grace. The revelation completed in Jesus Christ and in the apostolic era is thus more than a communication of doctrine. It is rather a revelation that creation shares in the reality of the life of God. The apostles and the Church after the apostles have always been focused on this total reality given in revelation by an intuition of the whole of being. In fact, all knowledge arises only from the enduring contact between Spirit and earthly reality. All knowledge must be integrated in the total person, in his heart and in his life. Truth must be practiced in a supernaturally new life; only thus will it be known. Besides, there are other factors than these.

One must remember that all knowledge is communal and consequently must be integrated in the total life of the community. Seen from this angle, one can say that the evolution of dogma is somewhat of a retardation: the whole truth and full knowledge have been given from the beginning, but they could not break out into full ripeness due to the retarding process of the growth of the community. Wherever truth and knowledge break forth, this happens in logical formulations. Therefore, we must distinguish between the word which is spoken and the reality which it intends to express. The continuity which is real in the Church of the ages cannot be understood therefore by historico-critical reason, nor by logical reason, because the whole process is centrally governed by supernatural factors. One can be sure, however, that there is such a continuity because the teaching authority which in the last instance defines dogma is itself of a mystical and supernatural character.

As I said before, I do not intend to consider in detail the Roman Catholic solution to this problem. I merely indicate that the third solution just mentioned reminds us of expressions like: we confess our faith today "in communion with the confession of the fathers" and "the confession of the ages does not matter, but the religion which has been expressed in it." By means of these terms the Reformed Church in the Netherlands tries to master the problem of the authority of the Confession in Church life.

What then can one say dogmatically about these questions? I do not claim to have an answer, but a few relevant considerations can be introduced.

In the first place, there is the metaphor of the egg of the cuckoo. The depositium fidei (deposit of faith) is like an egg of a cuckoo laid in the nest of the Church by the apostles. Is it possible to accept such a metaphor when applied to dogma? No doubt something has been deposited, namely, the contingent deed of God in Christ. Besides, there is the apostolic witness. But the question is, Can one say that the dogma has been deposited by God in Christ and in the apostolic witness? Or is perhaps the definition of dogma specifically the work of the Church, of man, standing over against God and yet being a partner of God? Even in that case the formulation of dogma has a divine origin. The relationship of God does not deposit the dogma among men but that God evokes if from men. God invites man to express what he understands the deed of God to be and what he thinks about it. The prototype of this invitation is contained in the question of Jesus, "Who do the people say that I am?" (Lk 9:18)

The possibility of God inviting man to formulate dogma has deep roots. In the Reformed tradition the deepest root is the thesis that the imago dei (image of God) even if it is understood as similitudo (similarity) is not supernatural but natural. This would also mean that there are no mysteries in God which by definition exceed the capacity of the created human reason. The being and the counsel, or at least the acts of God, are within reach of human reason, if we put it this way. This can be said at least about the sana ratio (sane reason). But the question is, however, to what extent the sana ratio reappears again in the reason which is illuminated by revelation.

If there is some truth in what we have said, one could conclude that the formulation of dogma is essentially the work of the ratio christiana (Christian reason) and of the consciousness of the faith of the Church, and not a gift of God in Christ.

One could even go one step further. The formulation of dogma is a projection of the reality of revelation, of salvation, and of redeemed existence into the field of thought. This projection always takes place in a specific culture and by means of the structures of thought of this culture. One might say that the urge to make this projection, the basic need to think through such things, is of a cultural nature. Perhaps even dogma has an element of luxury and play in the sense in which all culture as such is essentially the play of man with the material world. The main concern of Christian faith is redeemed life, but this concern is mirrored in human consciousness. But one should not go too far in this direction. The very insight that dogma is necessary for the protection of preaching means that dogma is to be taken more seriously. Besides, why would not this reflection in the consciousness be at the same time the scopus (goal) of God in His revelation? Dogma is really also a participation of thought and speech in the reality of revelation. Moreover, thinking and speaking are basic characteristics of man even in his encounter with God.

But what do we say then about the relationship between the apostolic witness and ecclesiastical dogma? Is the thesis of the Reformed tradition perhaps wrong when it insists that dogma must be scriptural and that the Word alone creates the dogma? To this I would answer in the first place that there are doctrinal elements in the apostolic witness, but, secondly, that it would be an irreparable confusion if one were to overlook the distinction between the apostolic witness and the gospel story on the one hand and the proclamation of doctrine and the definition of dogma on the other. These two categories are wholly different from one another. Indeed, the Word creates dogma, but it does so by evoking it from redeemed existence in its thinking activity.

By conceiving in this way the relationship between Holy Scripture and the Church, one allows more room for the evolution of dogma even if one insists on the thesis that revelation was completed in the apostolic era. In this case a greater emphasis is placed on the original character of the Church and her Tradition as over against Holy Scripture. It seems to me that this greater allowance for the independence of the Church and her Tradition is characteristic of the Reformed viewpoint in comparison with that of the Roman Catholic Church. Holy Scripture is a wholly unique but not the sole and only thing that counts in the realm of God. The Scriptures are the source, but the source is not the same as the brook. The Scriptures are the norm, but the norm is not the matter itself. The brook or the matter we are talking about here is ourselves.

We must state the question somewhat more broadly and more deeply. This is my second consideration. We are not dealing merely with the relationship between Holy Scripture and the Church; rather, we are speaking about the relationship of Christology and pneumatology.

It makes a great deal of difference whether one approaches dogma and all the other things connected with the Church solely from the standpoint of the Incarnation of the Logos, then, if we may put it this way, the whole truth is contained in the reality of revelation. The truth is then a bar of gold which still has to be minted. As soon as one begins to see these things in a pneumatological perspective, they look somewhat different. In a purely Trinitarian way of thinking the Holy Spirit is the third person and not a repetition of, but rather truly other than, the eternal Son. Applied to the mystery of salvation, this means that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit must be understood as a truly new act of God when compared with the Incarnation.

Imagine now--and this is quite feasible to do--that the Church in all the aspects and dimensions of her reality, even in matters of the formulation of dogma, should be seen in the context of the heart of man, and in the redeemed cultures of nations, rather than against the backdrop of the Incarnation of the Logos! This would mean that one can no longer be satisfied with the concept of the total reality of Christ always totally present and conceived of as a continuum in space and time proceeding uninterruptedly and directly from God. Things do not proceed from God in this continuous, full, and pure manner. There is a gap between Christology and pneumatology. This metaphor of gap is characteristic of the whole of pneumatology. Why? Because there is always a jump from one moment to the next in the Spirit. This is the element of the freedom of the Spirit. And above all it is characteristic of the Holy Spirit that he puts man over against God, as his partner, especially over against God in Christ. The Spirit is the leap from God to man and vice versa.

If one sees the formulation of dogma as the work of the Church within the framework of the work of the Spirit as we previously characterized it, one can understand theologically that there is evolution of dogma and why there is. We would be inclined to conclude, to use the image once more, that the Spirit is intent on using these leaps in their various forms in the evolution of dogma.

I now come to my third consideration. It is typical of the Spirit to use man. The whole outpouring of the Spirit and his indwelling in man is accomplished for the sake of man in his temporality, his isolation, and guilt. Salvation must be mediated. This means that on the one hand salvation must be given and on the other hand applied. This application means that man becomes part of the body of Christ and that Christ takes form in the human. There is always this twofold relationship in the Spirit: Christ and man and man and Christ. One may go so far as to say that man gains self-understanding in and through the work of the Spirit--the self-understanding of being saved in Christ and also of being elected from eternity and for eternity.

From what we have said here we derive three points which could be of great importance for the understanding of dogma and its evolution. In the first place, the heart of the revelation of salvation of God in Christ must be sought in the atonement of guilt. This atonement certainly should not be lightly confused with the proclamation of dogma. The former is still something quite different from the sharing of life, even of supernatural life. Atonement of guilt is a category of its own. It comes to man as a creative and redeeming message. From this message originates the new life and from the reflection upon this message the dogma arises. And yet in itself this atonement is a mystery and a message. This leads to a second viewpoint: the good news as a message for sinners was there even before the dogma. In this good news man encounters God himself. Man consequently was always saved and has always served God even without dogma. This means, in the third place, that we must put a heavy accent on preaching as the only form of the mediation of salvation. Preaching, the living voice of the gospel, is a category of its own. In preaching, God himself comes to us in the reality of His historical presence. The preaching more than the teaching of the formulation of dogma is the heart of the potestas docendi (power of teaching). One could ask whether the dogma itself should be understood as the preaching of the Church in the world? The question also arises whether the dogma could perhaps be the content of the preaching? It seems generally accepted that the dogma is the framework of preaching and consequently helps and protects it. Still, the preaching itself, which is given from the whole Scripture in the context of the fullness of life, is a category completely of its own. Preaching alone creates the presence of salvation and of God in Christ in present time. Of course the preaching of historical revelation has a dimension of knowledge about historical facts as deeds of God in the real world. It is also essentially evoking in man a confession of faith. This too is the work of the Holy Spirit. This very confession which is primarily a confession of sin and grace crystallizes into a dogma. One could go as far as to say that this reflection of salvation in the consciousness of man belongs to the scopus (goal) of preaching and the revelation. In this respect dogma and the sacraments are on one level. The sacrament is also beyond preaching and believing.

At any rate, if the dogma is a reaction to the viva vox evangelii (living voice of the gospel), it is not hard to see that this reaction changes in the course of the centuries. Firstly, it changes because the dogma is reaction to the living voice of the gospel and, secondly, because it is reaction, reaction in ever-changing generations and in ever-changing cultures. Again, from this it follows then that there is a place for the evolution of dogma.

My fourth consideration is meant to give a considerable elaboration of a particular point from my third consideration. In the latter we spoke about man in his individuality and his temporality. Man is grasped by the Spirit and used; this means with his knowledge of his eternal election and with his certainty of eternal salvation. These consideration do not come to the fore in the Christological perspective because the individual man is other than Jesus Christ; man is not the same as the mediator. And yet because of the Spirit man is added to the mediator. This event is a new moment or rather a complex of new moments which are added to the historical revelation in Jesus Christ.

My fifth consideration consists of a question. Are there perhaps still other creative elements in the work of the Spirit? This problem takes the form of a series of questions. They are, in short, as follows. Must we understand Tradition really only as an explication, development, illumination, or growth? Can one really defend the viewpoint that there is only a continuum, a continuous development from God in Christ leading to the end of time and to the ends of the earth? What then is the role of the various forms of human thought in which the revelation is being projected? Is it not so that we have to draw a parallel between the dogma on the one side and, for instance, architecture, the liturgy, church order, spirituality, discipline (in the sense of style of living), and perhaps also the cultural community on the other side? In all these various fields we see a thousand-fold change. There is for instance not a single Christian European form of piety which is truly identical with the piety of, for instance, the Psalmists. Besides, does it not make good sense to hope that the dogma outside of Europe in the so-called younger Churches will take completely new forms because it will be fed there from the sources of Asian speculation and the vitality of Africa? Is not what we do with this revelation and the form which Christ takes in us more important than the revelation itself? Is man not of the most central importance in the final analysis? Basically, history does not mean Christ but man and the Kingdom of God in man. Does this not mean that the demons are not merely cast out but that they are subdued, or, in other words, that the pagan world somehow will be integrated into the Kingdom of God? In view of these things, is it possible that no new things and no new truths and no new realities are being revealed? Is it not precisely one of the secrets of history that it is being wholly renewed over and over again in an incomprehensible spontaneity and creativity? Should not perhaps all Christian confessions blossom out into a philosophy of history? All these questions suggest an unlimited range for the concept of the evolution of dogma. This evolution embraces constantly renewed integration of new elements which arise in the historical process.

My sixth consideration deals with the heart of the matter. Is the Incarnation, is Jesus Christ, actually the definitive reality given in revelation? One cannot deny that He is just that. The New Testament expresses this clearly enough and the whole tradition of Christianity witnesses to this fact very strongly. The question is, however, in what sense is He the definitive revealed reality given in revelation? Is Jesus Christ the definitive revelation in the sense that He is the highest revelation of God in the world and that this is the crucial one, so that all the arrows of God's acts are pointed toward Jesus Christ? In this case the purpose of man and the world would be that they become incorporated in Jesus Christ to find their ultimate destiny, and their essence in God and in the participation in His trinitarian life. Or is Jesus Christ the definitive reality given in revelation in this sense, that He is the most profound revelation of God in the world, as it were the very last emergency measure of God which finally establishes and anchors once and for all the things which God intends, with the understanding that this act of God is really only the beginning? In this case all arrows are pointed away from Jesus Christ and He is being considered the means and we the goal. Accepting this alternative, man and the world find their destiny and essence really in themselves, namely, insofar as they are the realm of God.

We must be extremely careful when employing the idea that revelation is complete. That we have to be careful we see illustrated in the following example: the reverse side of the idea that revelation was completed in the apostolic era is that the same actually only started in the apostolic period. What do we do with the Old Testament in that case? Israel had practically no dogma and certainly no Christian dogma. And yet the Israelites could be saved and could serve God as we in the Reformed tradition believe. Should we then perhaps understand the Old Testament allegorically? Does this mean that only we can understand the Old Testament fully? Or should we accept the alternative that God truly came under the Old Covenant and that the Old Testament in its literal sense is the fully canonical Word of God? In that case we cannot hold that revelation only began in the apostolic era. This leads to a greater reservation toward the idea that God's revelation was completed in the Incarnation and contained in it and that God is revealed exhaustively in Christ. The Christian God is not only "in Christ."

Starting from another angle, we come to the same conclusion. The work of the Spirit is not merely illuminatio (illumination), application, and incorporation. There is also an element of perfection and realization. The Spirit perfects and realizes in us the salvation which is given in Christ. In this process Christ gains something. He receives something, namely, a human form in a thousand-fold manner. This fact adds to the concept of Tradition an essential eschatological focus. Tradition is not purely a matter of the past. Tradition is equally a matter of the future. Time is not yet completed and dogma shares this incompleteness of time. On the Dutch scene Isaac Da Costa (1790-1860) and J.H. Gunning (1824-1905) in particular have stressed this aspect and drew conclusions from it for the problem of the authority of the Confession.

My last consideration is concerned with infallibility. Christian thinking is necessarily concerned with this category because the pretensions of the Christian faith are great. The Church is really the bride of Christ. There is a real revelation of God in the world. The true God can be known and can be served. The created reality can be experienced purely. All these moments are contained in the promise of infallibility.

But how should we understand infallibility? It is wrong to isolate infallibility in one moment of the Church, in the office, the teaching authority, or even and primarily in the pope. It is equally wrong to concentrate infallibility wholly in the infallible Holy Scriptures. The root of either of those one-sided emphasis is, as I see it, that infallibility is one-sidedly considered from a Christological point of view. Christologically speaking, one must indeed understand infallibility in the sense of something that cannot be questioned since we are thinking about God's being in Christ. Enhypostasis demands infallibility in this straight sense. But it is not enough to limit one's Christian thought to the Christological point of view. One must think in terms of the Trinity and consequently pneumatologically. As a matter of fact, infallibility is above all a characteristic of the Holy Spirit and His work. But it is also essential for the Spirit that He use man. He works in the ways of man to such an extent that man must give an account of his work even insofar as it is the work of the Spirit or God's work. As in Christ, it is a matter of not being able to doubt of God; in the Spirit it is a matter of the possibility of doubting of man. Pneumatologically speaking, the relationship between God and man is not one of an enhypostasis but one of inhabitation. Consequently, infallibility in a pneumatological sense does not exclude fallibility but includes the same. It is for this reason that the evolution of dogma can take form of the reformation in that necessary, serious, yes, terrible sense, which we witnessed in the sixteenth century. Such a reformation is then fully a moment in the Catholic tradition.

The Reformation is not a revolution and one should not exaggerate the eschatological focus of the evolution of dogma. For we are not only directed toward the future. Were that so, the meaning of history would fall away. The Christian is also looking toward the past. All knowledge is a matter of community, not in the least in the dimension of time. Previous generations made their contributions. We ourselves are merely links in the chain of generations. The Spirit connects the future with the past and vice versa. For this reason I cannot see how one can posit the distinction between traditional and experimental as a contradiction. All experiments are cases of reordering tradition and they in turn create new tradition. The evolution of dogma, as all evolution, is a careful navigation along a course of a thousand and one failures. One never starts ab ovo. Only now and then can one leap. Only to God is the whole of time from beginning to its consummation, and with all its unity and comprehensiveness, the revelation of His image and the establishment of His kingdom. As human beings we have to stand in this whole in a particular spot in the present. This means that we consume the past and anticipate the future. The dogmatical labors of the Church and the theological science, when seen from the viewpoint of the evolution of dogma, can be compared with the card player. The card player has in mind at each particular moment in the game all that has taken place before. The dogmatical labors of the Church and of theological science can also be compared to the chess player who while making his individual moves sees through the whole of the game yet to be played. It is obvious that these metaphors suggest a great task for the Church and theology. But in view of this great task the infallible guidance of the Spirit has been promised to us.

Translated by Tjaard Hommes

Notes

This article originally appeared in Dutch under the title "De Evolutie Van Het Dogma" and was included in the collection De Evolutieleer Na Honderd Jaar, pp.16-30, published by De Erven F. Bohn N. V., Haarlem, in 1959, and is translated here with their kind permission.