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BIBLE LEAGUE, CREDO SERIES, N0. 2~
Collapse of EvolutionBY
PROFESSOR L. T. TOWNSEND, D.D., S.T.I)., M.V.I.AUTHOR OF CREDO, GOD-MAN, FATE
OF REPUBLICS, ETC., era, ETC.
Delivered under the auspices of the American BibleLeague, in Boston, December, 1904.
PUBLISHED BYNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY, BOSTON, MASS.
AND AMERICAN BIBLE LEAGUE39 BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK
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CONTENTS
I.
INTRODUCTORY
HYPOTIIESIS 0F EVOLUTION BROADLY APPLIED . . . .DEFINITIONS _ . . . . . . . . . -HISTORY AND TRIUMPIIS 0F EVOLUTION . . . . . .
NATURALISTS AND SUPERNATURALISTS . . . . - .
INDICTMENT . . . . . . . . . - .
II.LIFE GERMS AND NATURALISTIC EVOLUTION
LIFE GERMS SAID To BE A PRODUCT OF NATURE . . . .LIFE GERMS AS YET UNACCOUNTED FOR BY NATURALISM .
III.EVOLUTION, THEISTIC AND NATURALISTIC; STUDIES IN
GEOLOGYN0 LAW OF UNIVERSAL IMPROVEMENT . . . . . .
(I) BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS . . . . . . .(2) MULTITUDES OF SPECIES, FLORA AND FAUNA, SHOW No DEVELOP
MENT WHEN COMPARED WITH THEIR EARLIEST TYPES _.(3) MAN VIEWED BIOLOGICALLY snows No IMPROVEMENT(4) FIXEONESS, DISAPPEARANCES, IMPROVEMENTS AND REVERSIONs .
No TRANsMUTATION 0F SPECIES BY NATURAL OR ARTIFICIALPROCESSES . . . . . . . . . ~
(I) HORSE PEDIGREE . . . . . . . . .
(2) JAVA SKELETON . . . . . . . . . .
IV.
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EVOLUTION, THEISTIC AND NATURALISTIC; STUDIES IN BIOL
I
2
3
4.
56
OGY, EMBRYOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE ANATOMYDEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BODY . . . . . .DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN HAND AND EYE . .
RUDIMENTARY OR USELESS MEMBERS . . . . . .
METAMORPI-IOSIS . . . . . . . . . .
CROSSING 0F SPECIES . . . . . '. . . .
VARIATION OF SPECIES
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POP
10. WRIGGLING . .
CLASSIFICATION OF SPECIES . . .
EVERYTHING AFTER ITS KIND; STUDIES IN THE FLORAL KINGDOMEVERYTHING AFTER ITS KIND; STUDIES IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
(I) THE WIIALE DISPOSED 0P . .
(2) DEMAND FOR MISSING LINKS PRONOUNCED UNREASONADLE
I
(3) EXPLANATION OF HOW LINKS BECOME MISSING .(4) EVOLUTION OF MAN
EMERGENCE OF HUMANITY FROM ITS BRUTE BEGINNINGSV.
I. DISCLOSURES 0F ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY .2. DECADENCE AMONG MANKIND . . .3. PIIILOLOGY, COMPARATIVE RELIGION AND CODES OF ETHICS
THE AGE OF HUMANITYVI.
FORMER THEORIES ABANDONED .
2. MANS APPEARANCE AND THE ICE AGE3. SCIENTIFIC MIXUP
SCHOLARS AND EVOLUTIONALL SCHOLARS SAID TO BE EVOLUTIONISTSSCHOLARSHIP AND NARROWNESS . . . . .NATURALISTS ARE PROPOSING NO BETTER SCI-IEME THAN DARwINsTIIE ABLES'I SCIENTISTS AND EVOLUTION .+9
P.
BIBLE CRITICISM AND EVOLUTIONI. DESTRUCTIVE INTENTIONS 0F MODERN BIBLE CRITICS
VII.
VIII.
-
2. REJ'OINDER BY PROFESSOR A. H. SAYCE 0F OXFORD .
RELIGION AND EVOLUTIONI. OUTCOME OF DARWINISM .
IX.
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54.. .
2. RECENT EVOLUTION AND RELIGION . .
NOTES . . . . .
X.CONCLUSION 59
6x
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I.
INTRODUCTORY.
I. HYPOTHESIS 0F EVOLUTION BROADLY APPLIED. - It hasbeen quite the fashion of late years to employ the term evolution with much latitude, and in elds outside those of biologywhere it began its remarkably popular career.
Herbert Spencer, one of the very much praised pioneers inthis broader application of the theory, built his scheme of socialeconomy and government upon the hypothesis of organicevolution. So, too, Professor Drummonds very popularbookS Natural Law in the Spiritual World, and TheAscent of Man adhere throughout to this same hypothesis.The brilliant reasoner and writer, Professor Goldwin Smith,arguing for the Immortality of the Soul, takes occasion to saythat, It has been overwhelmingly demonstrated that mans/bodily frame, and its soul, as its outcome and perfection, have'been produced by a process of evolution from lower forms ofanimal, maybe of vegetable life.
Dr. Clifford, a leader among the NonConformists of England, in a surprisingly favorable comment on the destructivecriticism recently announced by the Dean of Westminster,employs these Words: -
We have in the main accepted evo_ /lution, and thereby can the better understand the majestic ways iof God.
And in almost every eld of literature, for a quarter of acentury or more, writers of note have been illustrating orenforcing their discussions by appeals to evolution as seen in
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the world of living things and have been vying with oneanother in praise of Mr. Darwin and his wonderful discovery.And, too, in American pulpits and in some theological schools,the theory of evolution has been quite as often presented andwith about as much reverence and unction as the doctrine ofvicarious atonement.
It would seem, therefore, that this theory, in the more recentuse made of it, is scarcely less entitled to a place among sys
'terns of theology than is the creed formulated by the NiceneFathers. And perhaps no one will question the further statement that the evolution theory, with its implications, has contributed largely to the vigorous growth of destructive criticism, and that the popularizing of it together with the effortsof higher critics to keep it well advertised have, almost morethan anything else, helped to weaken the hold that Christian
[fai
th and religious conviction once had upon the minds and,hearts of the American people.
2. DEFINITIONS. A few words at this point by way ofdenition and explanation may be allowed; perhaps arerequired.
The leading word in our topic, collapse, describes a thingthat has tumbled into such ruin as. will not permit of reconstruction. There is, too, suggested by the word the idea thatthere has not been ample support, as when a poorly-framedhouse goes to the ground, or that there had been too muchination, as when an over-blown bladder bursts.
Evolution, the other important word of our topic, in its biologiciliTstEriction, involves the theory that living things originally came upon the earth in the form of germs, supernaturallycreated, or imported, or produced by spontaneous generation.and then through natural and orderly processes, long continued, developed into various species of plants and animals,existing and extinct. culminating in man, who is recognized
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in physical science as the crown and glory of all earthlythings. *
3. HISTORY AND TRIUMPH 0F EVOLUTION. Mmfor another, the tlIeOry_of eyolution is wellQn in years, an
cient philosophers, church fathers and scientists for at leasttwenty centuries have been its advocates, though it did notgain its majorities, nor make what has been termed its conquest of the \\'Oll( , until Dr. Alfred R. \Vallace and CharlesDarwin, in 1858, separately announced the hypothesis of the Origin of the Species by spontaneous variation, and the survival of the ttest through natural selection, in the strugglefor existence. For a while after Mr. Darwins announcementthere was among scientists and philosophers quite a good dealof hesitation in adopting his Views, but later they were so generally accepted in Germany, England and America that for oneto have questioned them in either of these countries, at anytime during a period of twenty years, or more, beginning near
I880, would have been regarded by many as sure evidence ofan unphilosophic, unscientic and unscholarly mind.
4. NATURALISTS AND SUPERNATURALISTs.- From the earlier times and on to the present, evolutionists have been dividedinto two classes, naturalists and supernaturalists. The_natural;ist, asthe termiimpliqshrgles God out of the universe fronr
to nish, the claim being that nature is abundantly ableto look after herself and all things committed to her care independent of any iantecedent or outside interpositions.
The su rnaturaliSt, on the other hand, admitiQodscheme of the universe and places_al_l__natyre.moreorless underWe mind ofitlNeigxtieamesupernaturalist, evolution is little other thanwGods method in world buildingAanglfurnishing. h 7
*The notes are compiled in the Appendix and are indicated there bythe numerals II, II. III. IV, etc.
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The naturalist and supernaturalist, however, hold in common, that all developments of living organisms, whether withor without external supervision, are carried on strictly in harmony with processes represented by such scientic terms asnatural selection, struggle for existence, survival of the ttest,and transmutation.
The superstructure, builded by advocates of evolution,among whom have been philosophers, scientists, men of litera- _ture almost without number, and theologians of the highestrepute, appears from some points of view imposing, and itsfoundations at one time seemed as impregnable as those of anyhuman invention or speculation that ever had a name in scienceor phiIOSOphy.
5. INDICTMENT. Our topic, the collapse of eVOlution,_impligrtherefore, that at the present stage of scientic enquiry,The attractive and stately"edice,'built by either the naturalist\or supernaturalist, is found to be a poorly constructed affair,'supported by not one single well established fact in the wholedomain of science, philos0phy or religion. Now it must beConfessed that this sweeping indictment, unless establishedbeyond reaSOnable question and by facts that cannot be controverted, would properly be condemned as a piece of ignorant,impertinent and insolent dogmatism.
II.
LIFE GERMS AND NATURALISTIC EVOLUTION.The issue being now squarely before us, the next step is an
examination of certain claims that are made by evolutionists,or that ought to be made, and whose establishment is essentialto the successful maintenance of their theory.
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1. LIFE Germs SAID TO BE A PRODUCT or NATURE. -Andrst, the naturalistic evolutionist contends that the original
7 germs, from which all life has been developed, came into'exist
ence by some unknown natural process but were in no way_dependent'upon supernatural agency. Dr. Buchner, speaking
'forthis class of evolutionists, clearly states the case thus: ~ Matter is the origin of all that exists: all natural and mentalforces are inherent in it. Nature, the allLengendering and alldevouring, is its own beginning and end, its birth and death.She produces man by her own power and takes him again.
And it should be added that in exact terms evolution meansthat a single protoplasmic cell has, by a process of multiplying forms through an indenite number of species, produced all the forms of life that have existed on earth, withno supernatural interpositions. For if there were two, orten, such cells, coming into existence at different times, thenthere may have been a billion or more, and transmutationwould be quite unnecessary.
It may occasion surprise to say that even supernaturalistsare of late inclining to the theory that the origin of livinggerms may also fall within the scope of processes no lessnatural than those that work out the development of things.
A professor in \Vesleyan University, who assuredly wouldresent being classed among atheists, in a book recently published states the case thus:- When we trace a continuousevolution from the nebula to the dawn of life and again a continuous evolution from the dawn of life to the varied fauna andora of to-day, crowned with glory in the appearance of manhimself, we can hardly fail to accept the suggestion that thetransition from the lifeless to the living was itself a process ofevolution.
This conclusion is logically sound, if the premises are correct; that is
, if the unaided forces of nature have really evolvedu
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from structureless germs the beautiful organisms and mechanisms everywhere met, then those same forces ought to be able,in natures wonderful laboratory, to manufacture the originalgerms or germ from which those complex living things aredeveloped.
But it should be observed that the author begs the wholequestion, his premises being entirely speculative, and, as willappear a little later, entirely without scientic support.
2. LIFE GERMS AS YET UNACCOUN'IED FOR BY NATURALISM.- As is well known, the experiments of Dr. Bastian, in 1871.secured for the theory of the spontaneous generation of lifegerms very decided support. Later there came into use amongscientists such terms as bathmism," cosmic ether, cos
mic emotion," germplasm, pangenesis, protoplasm."growth force, vital uid and the like, all suggesting thestrenuous efforts that were making to account for the originof life. It should be said, however, that not for ve or tenyears have these terms, once potent on the lips of scientistsand philosophers, been employed seriously by any reputablewriter on these subjects.
Professor Huxley was forced reluctantly and rather mournfully to give up his bioplastic theory.2 Sir \Villiam Thomson,with quick dispatch, surrendered his speculation that life germscame to the earth on a meteorite from some planet or staron which life already had an existence. The chemical originof life, at one time advocated by Herbert Spencer, was abandoned in the last edition of his Biology, and the wordsspontaneous generation are mentioned no longer in scientic circles except when classifying it among those theoriesthat have not a particle of scientic or experimental evidencein their support.
I share Virchows opinion, said the late Professor Tyndall, that the theory of evolution, in its complete form,
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involves the assumption that at some period or other of theearths history there occurred what would now be called spontaneous generation; but I also agree with him that the proofsof it are still wanting. I also hold with Virchow that thefailures have been so lamentable that the doctrine is utterlydiscredited.
In a word, no cautious and well-informed scientist of whatwchQoLxenturesnowto go beyoml the followingstatementrecently made by a thorough-going naturalist : 5 The begin- ,
lLIIgS-Qf-llie- wnearpon lhgearlh in "some way rpunknown toscience. ..
"i
We have employed these words, well-informed scientist,advisedly, being fully aware that men who are to-day holdingprofessorships in American colleges are still asserting the possibility andaprobability of creating or producing life by chemical agencies, and that all existing life originated by naturalprocesses.
The professor of physiological chemistry in the Universityof Chicago, for instance, is reported to have used recently inhis lectureroom these words: The divine creation of life isa pure humbug. Life originally happened. Life is made up
/of certain organic compounds. Certain organic compoundswere made by nature. The compounds came together in somemanner, and the result was life. I believe that in a short timreal life will be created in the laboratory.
For a man who professes to be a scientist to employ suchlanguage is surprising and almost incredible. Here is nothingbut dogmatic assertion, of which a canting clergyman, ormountebank, not to say scientist and university professor.ought to be ashamed.
Weigh these words that will be a poison in the life blood ofthe young men who hear and believe them: The divinecreation of life is a pure humbug ! This sentence challenges
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the wisdom not only of prophets, apostles and of our Lord himself but also of scientists who have devoted their lives to theinvestigation of natures phenomena and who have taken rankin the past and who take rank to-day with those who stand thehighest in their departments of study such men as Agassiz,Beale, Carpenter, Dana, Davy, Dawson, Faraday, Forbes,Gray, Helmholtz, Herschel, Lord Kelvin, Leibnitz, Lotze,Maury, Pasteur, Romanes, Verdt and hundreds of others whoascribe to God and to God alone the power to originate life.
III.EVOLUTION, THEISTIC AND NATURALISTIC;
STUDIES IN GEOLOGY.At this point some one is waiting to put in a reminder
that naturalistic evolution and the origin of life are not atpresent questions of chief importance, since the popular andmore recent view of the theory allows the supernatural to beinvoked whenever it suits the convenience of the evolutionist,or whenever natural agencies fail.
But we may be permitted to suggest that the moment asupernatural factor is allowed to take any part in the schemeof the universe, that moment there is a weakening in everytimber of any theory of evolution that has been devised. Inother words, ifCod, ispresent and needed in one part of theweb of the physical universe, for instance, in the creation oflife germs, he is equally needed in every other. 'His intervention is no more called for when the planet Jupiter begins itsmighty revolutions than when a dying sparrow falls to theground. Unaided natural forces can no more make a hairof the head than they can make the mightiest mammal thatever walked the earth or crushed forests under its feet.
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If, however, it is insisted that extreme naturalistic evolutionshould be taken out of this discussion, we will deal for a fewmoments with that type called supernatural or theistic, that insome quarters has been received with almost an intellectualfrenzy ; a type, too, that has no hesitation in attacking ortho=dox views of Bible revelation and primitive Christian dogma,and that announces without apparent misgiving certain claimsupon the establishment of which, this popular, but dangerous,illogical and utterly vague scheme of evolution depends.
1. No LAW or UNIVERSAL IMPROVEMENT. And rst attention is called to what at one time was thought to be in theworld of living things a universal law of deveIOpment andimprovement, of elaboration and progression. And certainlyfrom a biological point of view and from the application thathas been made of the theory of evolution to various philosophical and theological subjects, the evolutionist ought to be ableto show that both sub-inorganic and organic evolution is suchas to secure general progress, more or less pranounced andmore or less rapid, the rapidity depending upon surroundingconditions, and that there are among living things continuousand unbroken connections between simple forms and speciesand those thatare the most complex. Without such progress'and Connections it is obvious that organic evolution rests upOnan exceedingly precarious foundation.
Now, while all this is implied in evolution and while a hastystudy of the facts may leave an impression that there is in theworld of living things what seems to be a cOntinuous elaboration or progression, yet a more careful survey discloses sucha mass of evidence pointing in the exact opposite directionthat leading scientists are now saying scarcely a word as to con- 1'tinuous and universal progress. On the other hand, they arefreely using such words as retrOgradation and deterioration
But as the facts bearing on this point are essential to the
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rounding out of the discussion and as they will be suggestivein dealing with other phases of evolution, we shall be pardonedfor calling attention to them.
(I) Beginnings and Endings. And one of the rstobservations made by the student of nature is that all thingsthat have their beginnings and progressions also have theirdeclinings and endings.
So careful of the type? but no.From scarped cliff and quarried stoneShe cries, A thousand types are gone;I care for nothing, all shall go.
(And since the human race began, though all sorts of arti
cial agencies have been employed and though there has been-_ the closest scrutiny, yet not a single distinctively new type ofplant, or animal, on what is called broad lines, has come intoi existence, but thousands have disappeared, never to return, andmany others are slowly but surely marching to their doom."
"V And the whole magnicent procession of living things, atthe close of which stands the human family, has stopped, noris there any scientic expectation that it ever again will beginto move. And from present indications and tendencies manhas no ground of hope as to continuance or improvement.except for a limited time, and in realms of mind and spiritwith which the biologist has nothing to do. Birth, growth,decline and death is one of natures most exacting laws and isno truer of the insect that lives but a day than of the physicalorganism of man or of the whole vast material universe.
But this, says the evolutionist, is not what is meant by thelaw of improvement and progress. Is not ?. Well, then, let usknow denitely what is meant. r
We mean this:-that the species, among plants and ani; mals, as the ages pass are on the whole improving.
(2) Maltitudes of Species, Flora and Fauna, show 110Development rr'hcn compared with their Earliest Types
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Beginning with what is called the primordial zone, whichcovers the earliest stage of biological history, and comingdown to more recent times, there will be found numberlessspecies that have shown no improvement since their creation.The algae or sea weeds, that appeared in the distant Siluriandeposit, millions of years ago, were no less perfect than thoseof the same class found in our modern seas. The oak, birch,hazel and Scotch r, easily traced back thousands of years,have remained all this time without the slightest improvement.
And, too, in the animal kingdom the same discoveries aremade. Insects that built the coral reefs of Florida, in thethree hundred centuries of their existence have shown noimprovement.
The crustacean family, especially the craysh group, thatrst appeared near the close of the carboniferous period, hasgained nothing though geological period after geologicalperiod has gone by since its creation.
The highest type of mollusk known to scientists is the onethat appeared far back in geological history. The same maybe said of the earliest sh, reptilian and mammalian families:they each
appeared fully equipped at the outset in the plenitude of their power, and never since have shown the leastelaboration or improvement.
And equally signicant and quite as troublesome to theevolutionist are the recent discoveries on the Pacic coast,made by deep sea dredging under the direction of W. E.Ritter, Professor of Zoology, University of California. At adepth of seven and a half miles, where there is almost absoluteuniformity of conditions, have been taken living creaturesessentially identical with those that lived in deep water inthe eocene ages, whose fossils are now found in geologicalstrata, that during terrestrial upheavals were raised from seadepths millions of ages ago.
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In comparing these ancient and more recent forms noimprovement is discovered; the earliest ones are as absolutelyperfect and as marvelously beautiful in color and structure asany living creature, large or small, that came into existencein the later geological ages. While both naturalistic and super;naturalistic evolutionists are acknowledging these facts, yet,as would be expected, it is with some measure of reluctance.for it is evident that every such fact weakens the foundations
,Of- evolution, and our friends, therefore, hardly could beblamed if they sincerely wished that all these later discoverieshad remained in the depths of the sea.
It is reported of Professor E. D. Cope that on seeingr anewly discovered specimen that controverted one of hishypotheses, he quietly said:
If no one were looking I shouldbe glad to throw that'fossil out of the window.
Coming to early historic times it is found that mummiesof cats, ibises, birds of prey, dogs, crocodiles and heads ofbulls discovered in the tombs and temples of upper and lowerEgypt, placed there from four to_ ve thousand years ago, areidentical with their living representatives.
(3) Man Viewed Biologically shows no bnprovement.Passing from these lower forms of living things to the highest,represented by man, there still will be discovered, on biological and physiological grounds, no evidence of improvement.
Professor Pierre Broca, who made a very careful study ofthe celebrated Cro-Magnon skull," belonging to the earlieststone age, says: The great Volume of the brain, the development of the frontal region, the ne elliptical prole of theanterior portion of the skull are incontestable evidences ofsuperiority and are characteristics that usually are found onlyin civilized nations. Professor Huxley, describing one ofthe oldest existing fossil skulls, says that so far as size andshape are concerned, it might have been the brain of a philoso
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pher. And what is true of the skull is equally true of otherparts of the human body. .
A scientist, skilled in these subjects, who has examinedstatuettes recently discovered in Crete, employs these words:I spent a long time studying the muscles and veins of theCretan forearm of four thousand years ago, as shown in someof Dr. Evans wonderful photographs. Their arrangement isidentical to the smallest detail with that of the surface veinsand muscles in the arm that writes these words. These statuettes constitute, in my opinion, the oldest exact anatomicalrecords in the world, and my study of them leads to the conclusion that in four thousand years there has been no changein even the minutest details of the forearm of man.
And upon enlarging the eld of investigation the evolutionist is confronted with still more serious grounds forembarrassment, for there is not only no universal law ofimprovement, or elaboration, on which his theory largelydepends, but on the other hand in scores of instances thereis among things having life a pronounced deterioration ofparts and functions.
There is one family of the ascidia, a group that begins withbackbone, throat and cerebral eye, each of which disappearsas the animal matures, and is never restored. Some of theparasite species begin with legs, jaws, eyes and ears, but losethem all, becoming after awhile a mere sac whose life everafter consists in absorbing nourishment and laying eggs.
The sh family began early, and still lives on, but has beenin process of degeneration ever since the Devonian period.Likewise none of the modern mammalia equal in size orstrength those that ourished during the geological age towhich they gave their name.
And from biological and physiological points of view thehuman race not only has not gained a step since the dawn of
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history, but on the whole, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, has been deteriorating: and if history warrants any statement, it is that except for a mind endowed at the outset withconscience, with which organic evolution has nothing to do,and had not religion, especially the Jewish and Christian,with their inspiring and uplifting power come to the aidof the human race, mankind long since would have disappeared forever from the face of the earth.
Nothing, therefore, is better established in the realms ofscience than the conservative announcement of the late Professor Cope, a pronounced evolutionist, at least until justbefore his death: Retrogradation vin___1iattire is as,well established as evolution. '
(4)F1Txedness, Disappearances, Degeneration, Imro'vements and Reversions. A fuller statement of the case is, thatsome forms of animal life in geological history have remainedxed for millions of years and are still living on; others appeared and remained without change for hundreds of thousands of years and then disappeared as suddenly as they came:others began to degenerate as soon as they appeared, and stillothers in more recent times under domestication, or articialhelp, have been much improved, though left to themselves theyusually revert to their original condition.
When, therefore, the evOlutionist, in support of his theory,says there is in the kingdom of nature anything that can becalled a universal law of development and improvement, hemost certainly is not telling the truth.
Universal laws do not depend upon circumstances or environments, but were true and operative yesterday, "are so today, and will be so forever, and everywhere.
We presume no one will question this additional statementthat universal and xed laws are far less numerous in the
,physicaluniverse than they were once supposed to be.
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2. N0 TRANSMUTATION 0F SPECIES BY NATURAL 0R ARTIFICIAL PROCESSES. Attention is next called to a claim of theevolutionist, held with much tenacity, by both the supernatu
ralist and naturalist, that by natural processes one species ofplant, or animal, may be transformed into another, and thatthrough'lolg continued and progressive transmutations thehigher types of animal life, including man, have been evolved\from thevlow'er. _ r 'FIFQIOUld be said at this point that, if the transmutation ofpecies is not established, then organic evolution can have nocientic standing. And unless it can be shown that man is a
transmutation from the ape family, or from some other familyback of the ape, from which it and man have both beenevolved, then the theory of evolution breaks down at the verypoint where it is vitally important it should be maintained.
(1) Horse Pedigree. - The reader is almost entitled to anapology for the repetition of the so-called proofs of transmutation, some time since overthrown, that are nevertheless thestock in trade of scores of men who appear to be either unpardonably ignorant of facts already established, or else are deliberately trying to fool the public mind.
For instance, there are the fossil bones of the so-called prehistoric horse that from time to time have been paraded asevidence of thegtransnmtation theory.
A Chicago University professor, occupying the chair ofpaleontology, in reply to an article written by a Boston professor of theology, ventured recently this statement : - Themodern horse can be denitely traced through a series of intermediate stages to a primitive species having four toes on eachfoot.
Now the only excuse, and it is a poor one, for this statement, is that Professor Huxley, twenty-ve or thirty yearsago, in a desperate eort to nd something to support his
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Demonstrated Evidence of Evolution, made use of thesefossils, the earliest species of which are found in the eocenestrata. Our Chicago professor may not know, perhaps, thatanother animal has been discovered having ve toes, of whichProfessor Henry Faireld Osborn, of the Musuem of NaturalHistory, New York, has recently given an account, and possibly another may yet be discovered having fteen toes. Thefacts are, however, that all these fossils differ so entirely fromthe bones of the modern horse that the animal to which theybelonged can not, on strictly scientic grounds, be called ahorse at all. And certainly it may be questioned, so far asfeet are concerned, to which the evolutionist connes his reasoning, whether the four-toed animal is not of higher orderthan the one-toed.or hoofed animal. Differentiation ratherthan convolution is natures method of improving the species ifthe teaching of the naturalist is to be our guide.
But what makes it all the worse for the paleontological professor is
, that the very species that ought to connect thosesupposed earlier ancestors with the modern horse, thus forming the needed missing links, are entirely unknown in geological history. While there are some resemblances between thosefour-toed animals and the modern horse, as there are someresemblances between a cow and a crow, a man and a mouse,each having a head with its eyes, nose and ears, and eachhaving feet with which to walk, yet these resemblances furnish no more evidence of organic connections and transmutations in the one case than in the otherthat is, no evidenceat all. In each instance these differently toed animals livedtheir geological periods and then forever disappeared, havinghad neither ancestors nor descendants. Or to make the case
a little more specic, and beginning with the orohippus, found
in the eocene period, there followed the mesohippus, miohippus, protohippus and so on, to the modern horse. Now,
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adopting Haeckels estimate of the vital era of the earth,the orohippus lived about three hundred million years ago.Between that animal and the modern horse there are fourso-called intermediate species, each of which flourished fromtwenty to sixty million years. Each species abruptly appeared,remained xed that length of time and then suddenly disappeared, and where thousands and even millions of the intermediate forms of the different species are demanded by the evolutionist, not one that is assured has yet been discovered.When Mr. Darwin and Professor Huxley were confrontedwith this, that might well have been regarded as a fatal fact,they met it by saying that the records are imperfect andthat the intermediate forms need not be looked for. But maywe not ask,'why not look for them and why not expect to ndthem, at least in some numbers, if they ever existed? Theseare questions that no one should be condemned for asking.
The most of this talk, however, is twenty-ve or thirtyyears old, and our Chicago professor should have known thatgeologists, on some of these questions, have changed theirviews two hundred times in one hundred years, and that noreputable geologist, or paleontologist, at the present time isat all satised with the evidence of the horse pedigree derivedfrom those fossils. .
(2) Java Skeleton. - Another piece of effete evidence,once generally employed by the advocates of evolution butlately by no scientist of distinction, are the fossil bones of theonce famous java skeleton that for a time had the reputation ofbeing the missing link, or one of them, between man and themonkey family.
The same professor of whom we were just speaking, theChicago man, recently ventured this announcement: A fewyears ago there were discovered in java the skull and portionof a skeleton of a creature to which the name pithecanthropus
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\l'\
erectus was given. Competent paleontologists and anthropologists to-day believe it to be a real connecting link between manand the lower animals.
Now, the facts in this case are of more than ordinary interest, and are these: In the month of September, 1891, Dubois,a Dutch physician, discovered a tooth on the island of Java,about forty-ve feet below the surface of the earth; one monthlater he found the roof of a skull about three feet from wherehe found the tooth, and in August, 1892, he found a thigh bonefortyve feet further away, and later, another tooth.
That is all that is known of the wonderful pithecanthropus,the link that connects man with the lower animals. A yearor two after these discoveries the worlds famous zoologistsmet atiLeyden, and among other things examined were theremains of pithecanthropus. Ten of those scientists concludedthat they were nothing but the bones of an ape, seven heldthat they were those of a man, and seven concluded that theywere really the missing link connecting man and the ape. Sothat of twentyfour of the most eminent scientists of Europe,only seven, not one-third, ascribed any importance whateverto this pithecanthropus erectus.
I
But the amusing thing about this celebrated paleontologicalaffair is a recent explanation that accounts for the differentopinions of those Leyden experts, though rather hard on thescientists; it is given by Professor D. C. Cunningham, of Dublin, one of the highest authorities in Great Britain on questions of comparative anatomy. His conclusion is that thosedifferent bones do not belong to the same animal at all, someof them being those of a monkey or baboon, the rest human.So that the missing link, pithecanthropus, turns out to benothing but a few bones of a monkey and fewer of a manfound not very far apart on the island of java. But what
, seems unpardonable in a Chicago professor is to palm off thosebones on the unsuspecting laymen of his town as evidence ofthe transmutation theory. 24
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IV.EVOLUTION, THEISTIC AND NATURALISTIC;
STUDIES IN BIOLOGY, EMBRYOLOGY ANDCOMPARATIVE ANATOMY.
\iVe may now allow the evolutionist, if he desires, to retreatfrom the eld of geology, where he has met with all sorts ofdiscomture, to that of biology and kindred sciences, where hehas been thinking he could nd more secure entrenchments.From these latter elds, with a show of condence, he haspresented, in support of transmutationism, quite an amountof exceedingly interesting, if not convincing, evidence.\ I. DEVELOPMENT or THE HUMAN Bonv.-With assura e and satisfaction the evolutionist calls attention to the factthat the human body, beginning as a single cell, only one hundred and twentieth part of an inch in diameter, develops into aman weighing two hundred pounds. Here, says the evolutionist, is evidence of what nature can do. Certainly, but what hasthat in common with the evolution of one species into another?From cell to man no mutation takes place. The cell is theman. The development of cells and germs is one thing,evolution by transmutations is another: they are as distinctfrom each other as day from night.
Again, following out an observation that in the embryonicstate man passes through the different stages of worm, sh,reptile and quadruped. the evolutionist has argued that thehuman race has, therefore, been evolved from the worm, sh,reptile and quadruped. This certainly is a momentous induction from limited data, indeed from almost no data at all.
'
If we may speak with perfect plainness, an inexcusableblunder in this instance is committed by reason of overlooking. or, what is worse, by reason of a misinterpretation and
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false application of the prophetic element in nature. That is,
the Creator is a prophet and his method has been to anticipateby type, pattern or prophecy what may be expected in his subsequent creations. For illustration the ns of shes, the wingsand feet of birds and the fore and hind feet of brutes, createdbefore man, are prophetic of the arms and feet of man. So,too, the lower forms of life, the worm, sh and reptile, furnishhints of what the higher and later forms are to be.
But from these forecasts or parallels in nature it should nosooner be inferred that there have been transmutations fromearlier and lower creations to the higher, than 'it is to beinferred that a transmutation from quartz crystals to oaktrees has taken place, because the root-like base of the crystalresembles the lower parts of a tree. This employment of prophetie anticipations in nature to bolster up the theory of'organic connections and transmutations is
,to a thoughtful
mind, about as agrant misuse of scientic facts as one canimagine.
2. DEVELOPMENT or THE HUMAN HAND AND EYE. -And, too, naturalists have given to the world volumes upon theevolution of the n of a sh or paw of an animal into a humanhand.
Sir William Abney, F. R. S., etc., has been .writing lately.of the evolution of the eye, nding, he thinks, the embryo eyeof man in the snail tribe, the approach to an eye being incertain places a slight thinning of the skin that covers thehead. The next stage in eye development he nds in a
creature of low order where the thin skin gives place to a
slight depression;pthe next adva'nceis found in anOther loworder of life where there is alsacillaving in ita SOit of pinhole. _ And so the evolutionLli/asv gone on until the perfect eye
is reached. But the troublewitli these speculations of Abneyand of others who have worked the same eld .is that. nothing
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has been proved. As a matter of fact there is no more evidenceof any organic connection between the thin skin on the headof a snail and the full formed eye of a mammal than there isbetween the planet Mars and a man.
3. RUDIMENTARY OR USELESS MEMBERS. In support ofevolution and transmutation much has been written about theso-called rudimentary, undeveloped and unused organs andstructures of different animals. The range of investigationhas been from whales to snails and from men almost tomidgets. But in all this writing there can be pointed out nota single sentence bearing on evolution, or transmutation, thatcan be called a strictly scientic statement; it is ingenious, veryingenious and interesting conjecture; and that is all.
4. METAMORPHOSIS. -And, too, metamorphosis has beenforced to pay tribute to transmutation. The so-called evolution of the yolk into the embryo chicken, then into the fullformed, or hatched chicken; the so-called evolution of thetadpole into the frog; the evolution of the ovum into the larva,then into the pupa, then into the perfect insect, have beenused as evidence of natures power to transmute one thing intoanother. But at this late day no scientist who cares for hisreputation will make such a plea. From a biological point ofview the fecundated yolk and the chicken, the tadpole and thefrog, the larva and the buttery, are in each instance one andthe same thing. In these developments there is no more ofan evolution than when a bud becomes the full-blown rose.
5. CROSSING OF SPEcn-is.-And, too, among the twentythousand species of animals already classied not one instanceis known where different species have been crossed that theresult has not been sterility in the animal thus begotten; andif this always has been the case, and no reason can be givenfor thinking otherwise, then there is shut out completely whatseems to be the most available agency at natures command forthe production of new species.
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6. VARIATION OF SPECIES. -Quite recently ProfessorHugo de Vries, of the University of Amsterdam, appears tohave developed a mutable species of primrose. California fruitgrowers are reporting new varieties of berries and plums.Professor Standfus of Zurich, by variations of temperature,claims to have obtained several new species of buttery.
The pigeon and mice families for a long time have beenunder exPeriment. And if it had been possible to produce anynew. species on what are called broad lines it certainlywould have been done. But the facts are that nothing has been.accomplished in the way of natural or articial variation outside of an oscillation around a primitive center. And evenin such cases, the mongrel forms, as has been pointed outby Professor Peschel, of Leipsic, never have been successfully established nor perpetuated beyond av few generations,"and among the sharply dened animal forms any abandonment of original types is followed by the complete extinction ofthe family.
It appears, therefore, in all these cases that there is no evidence whatever of a tendency in nature towards the transmutation of species. One might as well argue such tendencywhen the sweet orange or the Baldwin apple is budded, orgrafted, into wild trees, securing thereby a specially richand luscious fruit. Improvement and variation are vastly different from transmutation.
7. SCIENTIFIC CLAssIFICATION.We next call attentionto certain matters grouped under what is known as scienticclassication. That is, whenever there is discovered in geological deposits the remains of an animal before unknown, theskilled paleontologist nds no difculty in placing it in itsproper class or order. But this would be impossible, as any onecan see, if in past ages transmutations had been continually, oreven occasionally taking place. And, too, if transmutations
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were now going on, the world would be so full of animals invarious stages of re-formation and variation that classication would be out of the question.ever, the scientist is not embarrassed by any such perplexingconditions.
But the difculties in the way of the transmutationist keepmultiplying. It is estimated that organized life has been onearth fty, perhaps a thousand, million years. It is alsoestimated that there are at the present time two and a halfmillions of different species of plants and animals, and thatduring the entire vital period of the earth there have beenfty times as many, or one hundred and twenty-ve millionspecies, while an estimate in numbers of the different individuals belonging to these different living and extinct species isbeyond comprehension. And yet in the eld of geologicalhistory and in that of human history not a discovery hasbeen made indicating that among these multitudes of speciesand billions of individuals there has been a single case oftransmutation.
. 8. EVERYTHING AFTER ITS KIND; STUDIES IN THE FLORALKINGDOM. This matter of transmutation is so vital in thediscussion and gives such signicance to the remarkable wordsin the Book of Genesis that we may be more specic and dwellupon it a moment longer. In Genesis is this reading: AndGod said, Let the earth put forth grass . . . herb . . . treeafter its kind. And the earth brought forth grass and herbyielding seed after its kind. and tree bearing fruit, wherein isthe seed thereof, after its kind. . . . And God said, Let theearth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, andcreeping things and beast of the earth after its kind; and itwas so: and it has been so from the beginning until- thepresent moment. Seaweed for millions, perhaps a thousandmillion years, until now has brought forth after its kind.~
As a matter of fact, how-'
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So, too, the cedar, poplar, willow, oak, g, tulip, spice-wood,sassafras, walnut, buckthorn, sumac, cinnamon, apple and
um, from their rst appearance thousands of years ago, _in-variably and unvaryingly, have brought forth after their kind.
To an interesting pamphlet by A. L. Gredley, A. M.,entitled, Thoughts on Evolution," we are indebted for thisstatement which no scientist will call in question :
There are millions of protoplasmic vegetable cells everywhere about us, each one capable of receiving a life principle,but only from its own peculiar source and then its potency isconned to development only along its own peculiar line. Theprotoplasmic cells on an incipient corn cob cannot be fertilizedby the pollen of the rose. They must be fertilized by pollenfrom the corn tassel and then they will appropriate the nutriment brought to them by the parent stalk and develop intocorn and into nothing else. Other ora will receive their lifeprinciple from other sources, but each from its own and exclusive source and will develop along its own line and no other.
9. EVERYTHING AFTER ITs KIND; STUDIES IN THE ANIMALKINGDOM. Likewise in the animal kingdom the same phenomena are noticed. There are ve hundred species of trilobites that through millions of ages, while the deposits of thepaleozoic era were forming, not only brought forth each afterits kind, but not a fossil has been found by the paleontologistindicating that a single individual of any of these species everproduced anything but a trilobite.
The same may be said of the nine hundred extinct speciesof the ammonites, of the four hundred of the nautilus and ofthe seven hundred of the ganoids; among these species there isnot the slightest trace of any deviation from the law that eachspecies shall bring forth after its kind.
And, too, this law is just as operative now as during anyof the millions of ages past. Man, mammals and living things,
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the most inferior and most minute are equally the subjects ofit. From a wiggler gnat germ comes a wiggler gnat and nothing else; this is repeated without deviation over and overagain. The same is true of the tadpole and frog; neither onenor the other has ever been known to break from the familyline.
And throughout the continuous existence of the deep-sealiving things, reaching back perhaps a thousand million years,there has not been discovered, either in the upheaved strata ofthe past or in the deep-sea dredgings of the present, the slightest deviation from the law announced in Genesis.
But more than this. As is well known the scientic worldof late years has become profoundly interested in microscopicdisease-producing bacteria. But each species has been foundnot only to produce the specic disease for which it is named,as bacillus tetanus, bacillus typosi, bacillus xerosis, etc., buteach invariably reproduces its own kind. Except for this,medical science to-day would be in direst confusion. And, too,each of the billions of bioplasts that construct the humanbody, not only attends strictly to its own business, one speciesforming bone, another muscles, another brain tissue, etc., butno bioplast ever violates the law that like shall produce like.Indeed, if the transmutation of species among bioplasts werepossible, there would be no assurance that another normalhuman body ever would or ever could be brought into existence or be kept alive for a single day.
And what renders the case still more hopeless for the evoln~tionist is the recent announcement of biological science, thatthe structureless germ of one species of plant never has beenand never can be changed into the structureless germ ofanother, much less into that of an animal; and that thestructureless germ of one species of animal never has beenand never can be changed into the structureless germ of
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another. That is, structureless germs of all life at the verythreshold of their creation, or formation, are as immutableas the most highly organized plants and animals known innatural history.
So that from structureless germs up to the most complicatedforms of organized life, and from rst to last, nature at evei'yturn of the way takes her stand, and as if wielding a drawnsword absolutely forbids the transmutation of species.
Such, therefore, are the facts in the. world of living things,ora and fauna, and such the overwhelming evidence arrayedagainst the theory of the transmutation of the species and insupport of the law that clearly marked species forever shallbe kept inviolate and distinct. '
Io. WRIGGLING. After having fruitlessly searched formissing links of all sorts, and for other evidences of transmutation, it is amusingly interesting to watch the evolutionist inhis wriggling " performances, if we may employ a term Mr.Darwin once applied to Herbert Spencer, who unquestionablywas a master in that art.
(I) The Whale Disposed 0f.This water mammal hasbeen particularly bothersome to the evolutionist because therehave been found not only no connecting links but nothing withwhich to make connections. In fact, the evolutionist is aboutas much at sea as is the whale, not being able to determinewhether it is a land animal developing into a sh or a sh onthe way of becoming a land animal; he, therefore, some timeago swallowed the whale and is saying nothing more about it.
This case is cited, as the reader will infer, for the purpose ofillustrating the usual method employed by our American evo~lutionists and college professors when trying to dispose ofbothersome factsthey wriggle, gulp, and. whether to thepoint or not, begin talking about something else.
( 2) Demand for Missing Links pronounced Unreason32
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able. : Links between n animals and footed animals, betweenreptiles and mammals, also between reptiles and birds, betweenapes and men, have been sought with the most untiring andastounding zeal, but none are found. And now that the expectation of nding any is well nigh abandoned, the wriggling ofthe evolutionist is vigorously resorted to.
The believer in special creations, for instance, asks to beshown the connecting links upon which transmutation depends.The evolutionist replies that the demand is unreasonable andthat the one who makes it is not only no scientist, but does notknow what evolution is. Such in substance was the complacent announcement made recently by a popular professorof Cornell University before the Twentieth Century Club ofBoston.
But without incurring the charge of ignorance, or incompetence, may not one ask why the demand for these links isunreasonable? Or, let the point for a moment be pressedmore denitely.
In the eozoon or dawn-of-life period, as we have seen.there were living things that are still extant. Now, if evolution by transmutation is true, it follows that some of thoseearliest types of life have continued to produce their like, whileothers, having essentially the same conditions and environments, produced those that are unlike themselves. In otherwords, we have this remarkable phenomenon, some eozoonparents have been producing eozoon offspring in unbrokensuccession for millions of ages, while other eozoon parentsgave birth to Polyps, Acalephs, Echinoderms, Acephala, Gasteropoda, Cephalopoda and worms; and some of these in turnkept on, each producing its own kind while others producedin endless variety the Radiates, Mollusks, and Articulates, allexisting in the same waters and at the same time. And soupward through the numerous families of the lower verte
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brates to the highest. All~these varieties, according to' thehypothesis of evolution, have taken place in the descendants ofsome eozoons while others have continued till now withoutthe slightest change, and not a link connecting these differentfamilies is anywhere to be found. With these facts clearlybefore one, is it quite the thing for a college professor whenasked to explain these phenomena to wriggle and reply thatthe question is unreasonable and that the one who asks it is noscientist and does not understand what evolution is?
(3) Explanation of how Links become Missi1'zg.-Theimpression should not be left that no attempt has been, madeby evolutionists and scientists to account for missing links.There are students of nature who frankly acknowledge thevalidity of the demand for missing links and when questioned offer the following explanation: If species X is transmuted into species Y, then there must have been one or manyspecies Z, that were neither X nor Y. Now these intermedi~ate Z species would be neither normal X species, nor normalY species. But since all abnormal species, or forms, are lessable to survive than normal ones, it follows that there wouldbe an early death of the individual Z forms, and speedilywould follow the extinction of the intermediate families andspecies belonging to the Z group.5
And this is the explanation offered for the disappearanceof those connections known as missing links!
To speak with perfect plainness, it is this sort of wrigglingthat brings science and scientic men into contempt.
But failing in efforts to account for the absence of links,a few naturalists have frankly conceded that there are noneand never have been; that new species come from previouslyexisting ones through a rapid, perhaps instantaneous, transformation by processes not yet understood. In other words,all new species are eruptive, hence connecting links are entirely
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unnecessary. This, however, comes near being a fatal admission, for by it the foundations of evolution through organicconnections are not only loosened at every point and from top'to bottom, but special creation receives additional support andfrom a source quite unexpected.
(4) The Evolution of Man. -Man is now on earth, buthow on earth he got here has bothered the evolutionist perhaps
less than the coming of the whale into the oceans.That man is a direct or progressive evolution from the
monkey, a theory once popular, is no longer held. ProfessorOsker Peschel, in his Races of Man, has conclusively shownthat the anatomy of the monkey is such that the more it isdeveloped the more of a monkey and the less of a man itbecomes. '
It is at this point, too, that the evolutionist is able to displayhis remarkable skill and nimbleness at wriggling.
Professor N. C. Macnamara, for illustration, explains therelation between men and monkeys thus :
Man and anthropoid apes we hold to be derived from avcommon ancestral stock; the former, under the action ofnatural selection and other causes, including, I think, not onlyan inherent capacity of cerebral but also of cranial growth,have gradually developed, whereas anthropoid apes, fromarrest of cranial and cerebral growth, have not reached thestandard attained by human beings; the difference betweenthese two orders of beings, however, is one of degree, and notof kind.
Science ! Is this what is called science, these speculationsthat may amuse children but have in their support no shadowof fact nor reason. From a clergymans point of view the foregoing paragraphs are far from being rstclass wriggling.They fall considerably below the specimen given by a veryestimable professor of Yale, who explains the origin of manthus: 35
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Animal life on this continent developed no higher thanthe South American monkeys. The Old World current developed into the anthropoid ape, and then, by a colossal accident,into Man.
.
Colossal what? Colossal nonsense!
V.EMERGENCE OF HUMANITY FROM ITS BRUTE
BEGINNING.Another claim made by the evolutionist, one that is quite
essential to the successful maintenance of the most importantphase of his theory, is that the human race, after its emergencefrom lower animals, began its career not much above the levelof the brute, and through countless ages has been working itsway up ever since to its present state of civilized life.
After having found the previous claims of the evolutionistdestitute of scientic support, it cannot be expected that
thoughtful men will accept this additional assertion withoutasking for evidence in support of it. In other words one isjustied in demanding facts before accepting this or any othertheory on the say-so even of men who hold university professorships and who seem to have vast knowledge and abilityto express themselves in exceedingly learned phraseology.
1. DISCLOSURES OF ARCHEOLOGY AND HISTORY. It isfound as a matter of fact that the peoples of whom there is theearliest historic'account were not as has been claimed low
down but were high up. The Egyptians builded immensecities, invented systems of astronomy and writing, constructeda time calendar, founded schools of law and medicine, gatheredextensive libraries and did other things in ways that people ofthe present generation are unable to do. And there were othernationalities of equal antiquity, possibly of earlier date, who
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were no less civilized, notably those who builded their greatcities in the Babylonian valley. The Wolf Expedition, led byDr. William Hayes Ward, and notably the excavations underProfessor Hilprecht in the Nippur region, going back threeand four thousand years B.- C., have put a complete negativeupon all assertions as to the degraded conditions of thoseprimitive people. And, too, other explorations have broughtto light hundreds of tablets showing that there were in thoseEuphrates and Tigris valleys, nearly three thousand yearsbefore the founding of Rome and two thousand before Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, great business activity, peacefuldiplomatic, international relations and complicated privatelife, that afford unassailable evidence of high civilization.
These discoveries impress one especially by reason of thebroad range of subjects that engaged the thoughts of thepeople who lived in those times - the earliest of which there isany recorda range that compares favorably with systemsof study now pursued by civilized nations. Aside from merehistorical writings there were denite problems of historystated and expounded; there were theories and speculationsin astronomy and astrology; there were measurably systematictreatises on geography, jurisprudence and theology; therewere treatises on architecture, with plans and ornamentationfor buildings. and on applied mechanics and sculpture. Andwhat is especially noteworthy is the fact that these various tablets were arranged, classied and catalogued the same as inmodern libraries, as if designed for everyday use and for alarge number of readers. It is evident, therefore, that such intellectual enterprise must have had a much earlier backgroundof civilization and knowledge than that of the period whenthese tablets were written and catalogued. The Augustan ageand the Elizabethan era did not shine out from a totally blacknight that immediately preceded.
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Nor are we destitute of other evidences of civilization. InCrete, as early as four thousand years before the Christianera, there were royal palaces having sanitary conditions superior to those in any city of America until within comparativelyfew years. Indeed, it is gradually dawning upon the minds ofwell-informed people, that, in the most primitive times ofwhich there is any record, man enjoyed a degree of civilizationnot surpassed in any period of the worlds history earlier thanthe middle of the last century.
2. DECADENCE AMONG MANKIND.But what tells evenmore fatally against the assertion of evolutionists, that manhas worked his way up from a savage state in which he is saidto have originated, are the almost innumerable and certainlyunmistakable proofs of decivilization and decadence ratherthan progress. Southern Europe, Asia, Africa, Central andSouth America abound in such evidence. The marble palacesand high attainments of those primitive peoples in the courseof centuries have given way to the mudwalled hovels andwretchedness now everywhere met by the traveller. Thedegraded Fellaheen of Egypt are the descendants of the menwho built the gigantic pyramids. If, therefore, progress is theclaim, then regress is the counter claim. In other words, thefall downward of these people is more strikingly evident thanthe fall or cli-mb upward.
3. PHILOLOGY, COMPARATIVE RELIGION, AND CODES OFETHICS. Or, taking into view other elds of research, thecase against the evolutionist grows stronger and stronger. Itis now acknowledged by linguists that if philological scienceclearly demonstrates anything it is that primitive tongues, inalmost every instance, disclose a background of high civilization and bear an unmistakable impress of descent, rather thanascent. By way of illustration, take the name of the beautifulNew Hampshire lake, Winnepesaukee, whose meaning is the
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ll / "7,-7W'" f.
" I! . ' "r "L/Smile of the Great Spirit. Here in this word alone is disclosedthe fact that the ancestors of the untutored savage, back somewhere in the family line, had welldened ideas of the beautiful,were monotheists, believing in a Supreme Being who has afatherly heart and who at times, with a benignant smile, looksupon his children. _
So, too, the science of comparative religion, at almost everypoint, furnishes damaging evidence against the assumptions ofthe evolutionist.
Professor Schlegel reached a conclusion that since his dayhas been concurred in by all workers in this eld of research:The more I investigate ancient history, the more I am convinced that the nations set out from a true worship of theSupreme Being.
And the earliest ethical codes that have been discovered,those of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, in loftinessand purity, quite put to blush modern systems of ethics exceptwhere Bible revelation has come in touch with the People. In
a word, every discovery during the last twenty-ve or moreyears in these different elds of investigation and learning,those of geology, history, archaeology, anatomy, philology,ethics, and religion, have demonstrated the fact that so far as
is known, the rst beings on earth who wore the human formwere not brutes, nor even barbarians, as evolutionists tell us,but had bodies just as perfect, brains or intellects just ascapable of working and languages just as complete in expressing thought, as those of any people now living. These areconclusions based upon established facts and reached byapproved scientic methods rather than that lecture room,platform and pulpit guesswork that for a decade has had fullsway guesswork, boldly venturesome, somewhat ingenuous, but absolutely destitute of any valuable results.
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VI.THE AGE OF HUMANITY.
Nor should the correlated assertion of the evolutionist thatthe human family has been on earth countless ages bereceived as an established fact until brought under the searchlight of scientic investigation.
There have been, it is true, many speculations as to the long '
duration of human history. \Vith some show of reason Professor Lyell in his day argued that two hundred thousandyears at least should be allowed for human life on earth.Professor Thomas Sterry Hunt, from biological and evolutionary points of view, advanced the opinion that man has beenon earth not fewer than nine million years. But M. Lalande,a French astronomer, out-estimated them all, for, not beingable to think of any way, scientically, for starting the humanfamily, he reached the conclusion that man was not started atall and therefore is eternal.
I. FORMER THEORIES ABANDONED. The facts, however.are now found to be against even the lowest of these estimates.
Within the last decade, as our readers scarcely need be told,the entire drift of reputable scientic opinion is in favor ofbringing the origin of the human race within easy hailingdistance. Professor H. W. Haynes, a careful investigator, andleading American geologist, within a few months has madethis statement: The evidence for the antiquity of man onthe hypothesis of evolution is purely speculative, no humanremains having as yet been found in either the miocene orpliocene strata. The miocene man, says Professor LeConte, is not at present acknowledged by a single carefulgeologist. M. Reinach, a specialist in geology and author of La Prehistoriqne, recently published, afrms that there areno traces of man anywhere in the tertiary period, which bringsus to the threshold of historic times.
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Twenty or twenty-five years ago it was quite the fashion toassume that human remains and relics found in the westUnited States, especially those in California and Kansas, areconclusive evidence of the high antiquity of man. But duringthe year 1903, a thorough reinvestigation, conducted by Professor Holmes, aided by a special grant of money provided bythe Carnegie Institution, was made of the caves of Indiana,Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The result of these latest studies is given in the.following statement of Professor Holmes: There is noevidence at all to prove that man is very ancient on this continent. All ascertained facts seem to point to the conclusionthat no human being preceded the Indians in America. \Vherethe Indian came from is uncertain, but their straight blackhair, their peculiar physiognomy and other physical traitsshow that they are surely derived from the same ancestry asthe Asiatic Mongols. There is nothing whatever to show thatman has been in America longer than four, or ve, thousandyears at the utmost.
2. MANs APPEARANCE AND THE IcE AGE. ProfessorEdward Hall, secretary of the Victoria Institute of London, aspecialist on these matters, in a recent announcement, June,1903, says: Not in one single case in the whole of Europeor America has a trace of man's existence been found belowthe only deposits which we have a right to assume were developed and producer] by the great ice sheets of the early glacialperiods. This opinion is concurred in by Professors Haynes,LeConte, Boyd, C. H. Dawkins, Dr. Gandry, John Evans, W.H. Holmes, M. Favre and others. Granting, therefore, thatman did not appear until after the climax of the ice age, a factat present as well established as any other in geology, and following the lead Of experts as to the date of that age, there canbe xed pretty accurately the beginning of the human family.
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Professor G. F . Wright, who has given almost a lifetime tothis and kindred subjects and who has the unchallenged reputation of being one of the ablest glaciologists in this country,has reached the conclusion that it ended not earlier than fromseven to ten thousand years ago. Professor joseph Prestwichcollected much evidence showing that the close of the glacialperiod falls within the limit of twelve thousand years. Theopinion of M. Adhemar and Dr. James Croll is that it closednot earlier than eleven thousand years ago. Professor R.D. Salisbury and Dr. Warren Upham, among the most recentof American geologists, think that from seven to ten thousandyears is a fair estimate. In a review article (1904), thislast~named scientist, speaking of the post-glacial era, saysthat, From the studies of Niagara by Wright and myself,coinciding approximately with the estimate of Winchell andwith a large number of estimates and computations collectedby Hanson from many observers in America and Europe, itcertainly seems well demonstrated that this period (postglacial) is between seven and ten thousand years. Dr. William Andrews is of the opinion that the ice age, thoughlingering still in Alaska, in Greenland and on the mountainplateaus of Norway, was completed nearly as it now is notfurther away than from ve to seven thousand ve hundredyears ago.
The words of Professor Winchell are not only conrmatory,but graphic and suggestive: Man has no place till after thereign of ice. It has been imagined that the close of the reignof ice dates back perhaps a hundred thousand years. Thereis no evidence of this. The fact is that we ourselves cameupon the earth in time to witness the retreat of the glaciers.They still linger in the valleys of the Alps and along thenorthern shores of Europe and Asia. The fact is we are notso far out of the dust, chaos and barbarism of antiquity as we
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