00A.04 CHAPTER I.—Evolution
CHAPTER I. EVOLUTION [Delivered in First Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas] Sunday Afternoon, September 18, 1927
Mr. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I am highly sensible of the honor done me in being invited to do the preaching in this cooperative meeting, to be held by the churches of Christ of this city. I thank my good friend and brother, C. M. Stubblefield, for his words of introduction; and I am humbly thankful to our heavenly Father for the blessings of this hour, especially for this privilege of speaking to this very large audience of respectful and intelligent men and women. The subject that has been announced for this, the initial address of this series, is “Evolution.” This is, therefore, to be a lecture, but every other address will be a gospel sermon. The question of evolution is such a broad question that naturally you are wondering what part of it is to be discussed in this address. For that reason I shall adopt the policy of the old Negro preacher and give you an outline of the address in the beginning. The old Negro said: “I a’ways ’vides mah suhmons into three pahtes. Fust, I tells ’em whut I’s gwine ter tell ’em; den I tells ’em; den I tells ’em whut I done tole ’em.”
Likewise I shall now tell you what I am going to tell you, and then I shall tell you. Here is the outline:
I. The issued cleared.
II. Present Day Conditions in Reference to the Teaching of Evolution.
III. Does the Theory of Evolution Conflict with Christianity ?
IV. Is the Theory of Evolution True? Has It Been Proved?
1. What Say the Scientists?
2. The Proofs Examined.
V. The Failure of Evolution to Show (1) the Origin of Matter.
(2) the Origin of the Earth, (3) the Origin of Life, (4) the Origin of Species and, (5) the Method of Development. Of course each point of this outline will have to be very briefly handled since the outline covers almost the entire field. But I shall at least say something on each point and I beg you to hear me patiently.
I. CLEARING THE ISSUE. When any man speaks against the theory of organic evolution in our day he is, by all evolutionists, and by many other people who are under the influence of evolutionary propaganda, thought to be against science and scientists. In fact, such a man will be unhesitatingy stigmatized by newspaper reporters and even editors, and by some teachers, also by some preachers, as a reactionary who is fighting science and progress and enlightenment. And some of these will be kind enough to call him an ignoramus and other equally complimentary names. Our children are told in -the schools that no educated person today opposes the theory of evolution, etc.
Now, in the very outset let me assure you, tny friends, that I am not opposed to science, and 1 do not fight our scientists. Science has done marvelous things for the world and I believe it is destined to do yet greater things. It would be impossible for me to tell you in one address of the many blessings that we, today, enjoy as a result of the untiring efforts of scientists. Many of them have sacrificed their own lives in order to give us the knowledge that we now have and the benefits that we now enjoy. My own life has been saved by science at least once—perhaps many times—and I would be a veritable ingrate to fight, either science or scientists. I take off my hat to the real scientists, and I pray God to give us more of them. I do not therefore oppose the teaching of science in our schools.
But, friends, the theory of evolution is not science, and in opposing it we do not have to give up any practical benefit thai science has ever brought to the world.
Two or three years ago, when the Dayton (Term.) trial had set the whole world to talking evolution, there appeared an editorial in a great daily newspaper under the caption: “Trying to Turn the Clock Back.” This editor said that those of us who oppose the theory of evolution are trying to turn the clock of progress backward. He said we wanted to stop.the efforts of scientists to bless the world with their researches into the secrets of nature and the laws of life. He said we are trying to deprive the world of the benefits that science has brought to it and to take it back to Medievalism. When I read that editorial I wrote a letter to the editor and told him that I had been opposing the theory of organic evolution, but I had not been conscious that in doing so I had tried to turn the clock back; thatl I did not want to deprive the world of any blessing that science has brought to us, nor did I wish to hinder scientists in their investigations and researches. I then asked him to please name at least a few of the practical benefits that science has given us that we will have to abandon if we should all repudiate the theory of evolution. I watched the paper carefully for an answer to my request. Each day articles appeared in that paper favoring evolution and bitterly denouncing and ridiculing those who oppose it. But no reference to my letter appeared. After about ten days I wrote to the editor again and reminded him of my request and then repeated the request by asking him to name one practical benefit that science has given us that I can not appropriate and enjoy as much while opposing the theory of evolution as he can while believing and preaching it. I told him if he did not have the time and the inclination to answer my request to please to publish it and allow some of his contributors to answer it. But that letter never saw the light and no reference was ever made to the request in that paper. Since that time I have presented that same request as a challenge to evolutionists, but no one has yet told me what practical benefit of any science— medicine, surgery, agriculture, animal breeding or any other branch of scientific study—we must give up if we oppose the theory of evolution. It is very true that we might have to give up some of the explanations that scientists make of existing phenomena, but such explanations are only given as possible explanations and they ’have nothing to do with practical benefits. The theory of evolution is not science; it is only a theory and wholly speculative, purely academic, and scientists themselves are at war among themselves on many points in the theory. Be it understood, therefore, that we who oppose the theory of organic evolution do not oppose science or the teaching of science in our schools.
II. PRESENT DAY CONDITIONS IN REFERENCE TO THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION. The majority of real sincere scientists of our day may hold to some theory, or to some part of the theory of evolution. But these scientists are not propagandists and we have little to fear from them on this question. But there is a noisy group of scientists, whose sincerity, at least on some points, it is hard to credit, and a still larger group of propagandists who are not scientists, who are in our day making a desperate effort to popularize evolution. They employ every means that they can command to create a sentiment in favor of the theory and to turn public opinion against any man who does not unqualifiedly accept the theory. Evolution has become a dogma and organizations are formed for the purpose of upholding and preaching this dogma. It is no longer simply a theory which men are studying—a working hypothesis on which scientists are basing their researches—but it is with many a closed question. It is a pet dogma and its devotees hold to it with as much intolerance and dogmatism as any religious fanatic ever manifested. In the introduction to his book, "The Case Against Evolution,” Dr. George Barry O’Toole, a scholar and a scientist, says: “In the present work, we shall endeavor to show that Evolution has long since degenerated into a dogma, which is believed in ’spite of the facts, and not on account of them.” This is a strong indictment, but all those who have observed the spirit of many present day evolutionists will agree with the statement.
Evolution is taught in practically all our schools and colleges, in some schools with more zeal and enthusiasm than others, of course. It is taught as a fact—not as a theory—and our children are told that nobody questions evolution except ignoramuses. It is taught in the lowest ’grades. I hold here in my hand a text-book which was an adopted text-book in the State schools of Kentucky a few years ago—may be yet—and has no doubt been used in many other States. This book was used in the second grade, and the Teacher’s Manual recommended that it be read to the children in the first grade. The name of this book is, “Home Geography.” The author is Harold W. Fairbanks, Ph.D., and it is published by the Educational Publishing Co. On page 142, under the heading, Something About Birds,” we have this:
If birds could talk what stories we might hear. We might learn of a time, ever so long ago, when their grandfathers were not birds at all. Then they could not fly, for they had neither wings nor feathers. These grandfathers of our birds had four legs, a long tail and jaws with teeth. After a time feathers grew upon their bodies and their front legs became changed for flying. These were strange looking creatures. There are none living like them now. If birds could talk, and if they were not any more truthful than men are, they would make images of their four-legged grandfathers and set them up in museums, and cause their pictures to be put in text books.
I hold here another text book which is used in our high schools. The name of this book is “American Social Problems.” It is published by The MacMillan Company and it has two authors. They are Henry Reed Burch,. Ph.D., and S. Howard Patterson, A.M. I have examined this book and aside from what it says on evolution I pronounce it a splendid book. I can not see just what business evolution has in a book on the “American Social Problems ’’ but it is here all right—with a vengeance. It is called “A Great Discovery”—that is the name of the chapter in which it is treated, and the first sentence of the chapter says: “The discovery of the theory of evolution in the last century by Charles Darwin was almost as epoch making as the discovery of America by Columbus.”
Then between pages 16 and 17 we have the picture of what evolutionists call the Neanderthal Man—an intermediate being between man and ape. Under this picture the authors tell us that this is “An artist’s conception of the Neanderthal Mjan.” They also tell us that it is in the book by “Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.”
Yes, in that part of the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, called “The Hall of the Age of Man,” there are five glass cases in which are kept the “reconstructed” forms of the so-called intermediate animals—ape-men. Skeletons of these ape-men have not been found, these forms are imaginary, or hypothetical. They are, in truth, only “an artist’s conception” of what evolutionists tell us must have once existed—but of such existence they have no proof. A few facts about these reconstructed forms will be interesting here. Let us take this Neanderthal Man first. Was the skeleton of such a man found? No. In August, 1856, some laborers digging in a small cave at the entrance of the Neanderthal gorge, Westphalia, Germany, threw out some pieces of a skull bone. The scientists learned about these bones and became interested in finding out to what race of men or what apes or what ape-men these bones belonged, Further search was made in that cave and oilier bones—human bones—were found. A controversy arose immediately among the scientists about this skull. They used the lines of the fragments found to form or reconstruct the complete skull and then measured its internal capacity. Now the capacity of the human skull is between 1400 and 1500 cubic centimeters, while the ape’s skull capacity stops at 600 c.c. Of course the evolutionists wanted to make this Neanderthal skull capacity as low as they could in order to tell the world they had found the “missing link.” So the first measurement told them that the capacity was 1033 c. c. But even Professor Huxley had to correct that, and he estimated the capacity at 1230 c. c. Others estimated it at a higher figure than that. There was never any agreement among scientists as to the proper place to assign these skull fragments. On the contrary, twelve distinct and different opinions among the most eminent scientists have been held in reference to this skull. Yet we have the reconstructed form of the man in our great museum and full page pictures of the complete form of this imaginary man in our text-books for our children to look at as they read the history of the “Neanderthal race”—a face that never existed! A race named for a valley in Germany where some bone fragments were found! The history of some of those other restored or recon-structed forms is even more disgraceful than that of the Neanderthal Man. (Scientists call this gentleman Homo- Neanderthalensis for short.) Take the Piltdown Man or the Dawn Man for example. Time will not allow me to give you the full story of that renowned gentleman’s career, but here are a few facts. About the year 1909, Mr. Charles Dawson, while walking along a farm road close to Piltdown Common, Sussex, England, noticed that the road had been mended with some peculiar brown flints not usual in that district,” He made inquiry and learned that these flints had been dug from a sand bed On that farm. He visited the sand bed and asked the lalxmers if they had found any bones or other fossils. They had not. He urged them to preserve anything they might find in the future. Upon one of his later visits to this sand bed a laborer banded Mr. Dawson a small piece of human skull bone. This started the excitement and laborers were employed to dig and search until every particle of gravel in the pit was sifted. As a result of this search three other bone fragments were found, consisting of another small piece of skull bone, a part of a jaw bone and one canine tooth.
Mr. Dawson brought these bones to the attention of other scientists and they proceeded at once to “reconstruct" the Piltdown Man, who was supposed to have grown these bones some 300.000 years ago. Of course he must have a scientific name and they called him Eoanthropus, from the two Greek words, Bo-dawn and anihopos—man—hence Dawn Man. And they named the species “Dawsoniin honor of Mr. Dawson. Thus our scientists had a new genus and species started out with the command to be fruitful and replenish the earth with “monkey-men” evolutionists. —But Mr. Dawn Man, like many other "down and outers,” found it not so easy to “come back” as it at first appeared. He had “Dawned” auspiciously, but there were thick clouds rising. In August, 1913, the British Association for the Advancement of Science discussed these Piltdown fragments. Then Sir Authur Kieth demonstrated that the Piltdown skull had a brain capacity of 1500 c, c., instead of 1070 c. c., which Mr. Piltdown’s friends had at first allowed him. This proved that the skull was a modern or fully developed human skull, and not a pre-human or ape-man skull, as the inventors of Mr. Piltdown had declared. Then quite a controversy was carried on for several years among the scientists in reference to the status of our dear Mr. Eoanthropus. And on examination some scientists showed that the canine tooth had by the “reconstructors” been put into the right side of the lower jaw, whereas it belonged in the left side of the upper jaw. Of course any scientists should have known better than to make that mistake, but their zeal to make the beloved Mr. Dawn Man look the part they had assigned him caused them to put this tooth into the protruding under jaw, just with the right angle to make it ape-like. But their embarrassment did not step with that humiliating exposure. A further examination by honest scientists revealed the fact that the jaw and the skull did not belong to the same individual, or even to individuals of the same genera. The skutt was that of a human being and the jaw was that of an ape. As late as 1916 Dr. George Grant MacCurdy, head of the Archaeological Department of Yale University, said:
Regarding the Piltdown specimens, we have at last reached a position that is tenable. The cranium is human, as was recognized by all in the beginning. On the other hand, the mandible and the canine tooth are those of a fossil chimpanzee. This means that in place of Eoanthropus Bawsoni (the Piltdown missing link) we have two individuals belonging to different genera.” (Science, Feb. 18, 1916.) The other “reconstructed” forms that scientists present to us in the museums and by pictures in our books are no more real and have no more authenticated existence than the disreputable Mr. Piltdown. Time will not permit me to tell you the story of the Java Man, which scientists call Pithecanthropus erectus. His existence is no better established than that of Eoanthropus. Concerning his bones the scientists have never agreed, and he today has rio standing among honest scientists. Then there is another “missing link” or pre-human ancestor known by the long name of Propliothecus Haeckeli. But this gentleman is such a patent fraud that even Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborne speaks of him as “hypothetical.”
These facts that I am here giving you can easily be tested. The controversy concerning the bone fragments can still be read in the publications in which they appeared years ago. They are preserved in our libraries. But in spite of the fact that these so-called missing links never existed, except in the imagination of the artists and over-anxious evolutionists, our text-books still carry pictures of them and our teachers tell our children about these ape-men. But the fact is the teachers often do not know themselves that these ape-men are fabrications. They have read about them, have seen their pictures and perhaps they have been to New York and have seen the “reconstructed” forms in nice glass cases in the Hall of the Age of Man of the Museum of Natural History. And many a poor little teacher is afraid to question these things lest he be called uneducated. Hence he has fallen a victim to these shameful deceptions. But I have said that there is an organized effort to spread evolution propaganda today. I will tell you about some of these organizations, "j/ In 1925 there was formed in San Francisco what is known as the Science League of America.-^ Mr. Maynard Shipley was elected president of this organization and in his inaugural address he said that the purpose of the League was to “Keep evolution in the schools and to keep Genesis out.” Evolution is already in ffie~schoCls and Genesis is~already out and the Science League means to keep it just that way. This League grew rapidly and soon it had organizations in many States and representatives in a number of State universities. And this League was not slow to employ the most effective means for spreading evolution doctrine. I have here a circular put out by the Science League of America announcing a moving picture which preaches evolution. Hear what it says:
Must Repeat! Sensational Five-Reel Film on Evolution—The Tree of Life. A. death blow to Medievalism. The most amazing and convincing moving picture ever made, showing graphically the birth of worlds and the evolution of man frim simpic single cells. Auspices of the Science League of America.
Now, there you are! A picture showing the birth of worlds and the evolution of man from a little one cell microscopic life! Scientists know nothing of the origin of the earth. They have some theories. But behold here is a picture of how it was done! And no scientist —not even a wild-eyed evolutionist—will attempt to tell you how evolution has progressed from earliest times down to the present. They know that there are things they can’t account for—chasms they can not bridge— but here is a picture that purports to show the whole process at work—from a thing without organs up to man with his highly perfect organism. When the uninformed people sit and look at that picture they will of course think that scientists have found all this out—have proved it. They do not know that this thing is pure fiction. That it was drawn from the overwrought imagination of “monkey-men” evolutionists. When they see that it is put out by the Science League they think that means scientists. They don’t know it means an organization of propagandists.
There is an organization which holds a charter in New York State known as the Four A Society—The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. This association can be complimented for one thing. It does not hide its purpose. It means to advance atheism --hence to overthrow faith in God and Christ and the Bible. In fact it boldly declares that it means to direct its fight against the church and the clergy. It, too, has grown rapidly, and now has many sub-organizations among college students of our country. But you ask what that organization has to do with evolution. Just this, it uses evolution as a pry pole with which to overthrow faith. And so anxious are they to prove evolution that they are, through their Mr. English of Detroit, endeavoring to raise one hundred thousand dollars to be Used in an effort to cross breed man with apes. They report that the Soviet government of Russia has already appropriated thousands of dollars to be used in this effort. These atheists know what many preachers do not realize—viz.—that if evolution is established Christianity is overthrown and God knocked out of existence. Like the people Paul speaks of in Romans (Romans 1:21-28), they refuse to have God in their knowledge and they must therefore account for the phenomena around us by a Godless process—evolution. But this brings us to the question—
III. DOES EVOLUTION CONFLICT WITH CHRISTIANITY ?
We have many people who say that evolution does not in any way interfere with our faith in God, Christ and the Bible. Even many preachers make this claim, and they get very much excited when some of us point out the conflict. The trouble with these preachers is that they think that the theory of evolution is established and completely demonstrated and they must therefore make Christianity harmonize with it or else ’jgive up Christianity. And down in their sub-consciousness somewhere they have the lurking suspicion that evolution has already ruined a great many things that our fathers believed—things taught in the Bible—but they console themselves with the assurance that at least the moral principles—the ethical ideals of Christianity still remain and therefore they profess to be Christians and evolutionists, too. But such people are neither good Christians nor good evolutionists and they must continually soft-pedal certain points in both systems. But as for me. I am going to accept the truth whenever I can learn it, regardless of what ft costs, and if evolution conflicts with Christianity then one of them must be false, and if evolution is proved to be true, then it is Christianity that is false and for my part it must go. Let us be honest enough with ourselves therefore to consider the question, Does evolution conflict with Christianity? In answering this question it is necessary to know what we mean by “evolution.” What is evolution? We will let the scientists define this term for us or tell us what they mean to include in the theory of evolution. First, I wish to read to you Herbert Spencer’s famous definition. Now you want to know what evolution is, here he tells you. You get this and tomorrow if somebody asks you what evolution is you tell them this:
Evolution is an integration of matter and a con-comitant dissipation of motion during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.
Tell ’em that! (Laughter.)
Now, fearing that you might forget some of those long words I have here a paraphase of that definition— the same thing exactly in simpler terms. Get this:
Evolution is a change from a no-howish, untalk- aboutable, nll-slikeness to a some-howish and in general talk aboutable not-all-alikeness by a continuous something elsefication and stick togethera tion. That is evolution! You may laugh at that if you please, but that is just as clear an explanation as any scientist can give of the transforming steps; or the change from the structureless cell to the perfect organisms of today. But other definitions will give us a better answer to the question we are discussing. Joseph LeConte, who was an authority on evolution, and a great apalogist for it, defines it as follows:
Evolution is (1) a continuous progressive change, (2) according to certain laws. (3) by means of resident forces.
Edward Drinker Cope, the American anatomist and paleontologist, in his “Introduction to the Primary Factors of Organic Evolution,” says: The doctrine of evolution may be defined as the teaching which holds that creation has been and is accomplished by the agency of the energies which are intrinsic in the evolving matter, and without the interference of agencies that are external to it. It holds this to be true of combinations and forms of inorganic nature, and those of organic nature as well. . . . The science of evolution is the science of creation.
Ernest Haeckel says: Evolution is the non-miraculous origin of the universe.
H. W. Conn says: The essential idea which underlies the whole theory is that species have had a natural, rather than a super-natural, origin. In the debate at San Francisco between Mr. Maynard Shipley, President of the Science League of America, and Mr. Francis D. Nichol, Editor of the "Signs of the Times” Mr. Shipley affirmed, “That the earth and all life upon it are the result of evolution.” The “learned Genevan professor,” and ardent evolutionist, Carl Vogt, says “evolution turns the Creator out of doors.” From these definitions of the doctrine we must all see that Vogt is right. If creation has been accomplished by forces that reside in the evolving matter, and without the aid of any force, power or energy external to it— of course that excludes God. Evolution attempts to account for the earth and all the life upon it by a process of naturalism. It denies the touch of a divine hand, denies super-naturalism, at any point in the process. Truly this “turns the Creator out of doors” and if evolutionists do not deny the existence of the Infinite God, they leave Him no room to interfere or function in the affairs of the universe. They render Him both helpless and useless. But evolutionists, who are consistent and logical, know that the doctrine makes the existence of a personal God useless and hence they do not believe in Him. Professor George M. Royce, of Harvard University, defines God as “the spirit animating nature, the universal force which takes the myriad forms, heat, light, gravitation, electricity and the like.” (As quoted by Dr. Ni’chol in San Francisco Debates.) Le Conte avowed:
There has gradually grown up, without our confessing it, a kind of scientific polytheism—one great Jehovah, perhaps, but with many agents or subgods, each independent, efficient, and doing all the real wo-k in his own domain. The names of these, our gods, are gravity, light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, etc., and we are practically saying; “These oe your gods, O Israel, which brought you out of the land of Egyptian darkness and ignorance. These he the only gads ye need fear, and serve, and study the ways of.”—“Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought,” p. 298 Joseph A. Leighton, professor of philosophy in the Ohio State University, has recently written: From the scientific standpoint, God is a superfluous hypothesis which explains nothing, and only constitutes a bar to scientific inquiry.—“Religion and the Mind of To-day,” p. 198.
Here is a rather lengthy but very frank and pointed statement on this issue from Winterton C. Curtis, Ph.D., of the University of Missouri:
During the three centuries involved, man’s picture of himself changed from that of a being, recently created and awaiting the day of judgment in the not distant future, to that of a being originating as a part of organic nature and set in a universe without beginning and without end. The byproduct of this intellectual revolution was an emancipation of the human spirit from the bonds of authority. Authority indeed remains, but it is no longer the authority of book or priest, however potent such authority may still appear to be. In its place stands the authority of nature; and so great has been the emancipation we have, as yet, recognized but an insignificant measure of the changes in human thinking which must follow. . . . In theology, the evolutionary doctrine is carrying us from the concept of a single religion, revealed to man by agents duly inspired, to the concept of a multitude of religions of various worthiness, but all the outgrowth of yearnings which originated with human intelligence. In other words, religion, of whatever sort, is a product of organic evolution, just as human intelligence is a product of evolution. When religion is so regarded, we need not condone the shortcomings of our fathers, nor strive for Metaphysical explanations of sin an death, of sorrow and pain; since these are but the present outcome of our origin from the brute. We know in part whence we come, if not whither we are going, and it is enough if we may, by our own efforts, some-what improve the material and spiritual state of ourselve3 and our children. . . .Old beliefs often persist apparently in full vigor, until the collapse is at hand; but when beliefs begin to excite ridicule, their course is nearly run. The history of scientific progress has been marked by spiritual emancipations. To-day the process still goes on, for supernaturalism is not yet fully vanquished, but lingers on as a miasma of society. Science and Human Affairs, pp. 309-312. Harcourt, Brace Co., 1922. But as a final statement on this point I want you to hear what Dr. William E. Ritter has to say. As I am quoting’ him after Dr. Nichal in the San Francisco debate, I shall let Dr. Nichal introduce the quotation and tell when and where it was uttered. Remember, however, that Dr. Nichal was in debate with the president of the “Science League.” His opponent did not deny or question any of his quotations. Hear this:
Even more sweeping and more to the point here tonight is a statement made by one of the men responsible for the “Science League of America,” Professor Wm. E. Ritter, of the University of California. From this platform, at a rally meeting of the “Science League” recently, he declared that any future evolutionary progress of mankind in philosophy, morality, or religion, is possible “only on the basis of a knowledge of, and confidence in, the naturae that will not have room for one jot or tittle of belief in the supernatural.”
Now if the teachers in our schools and universities can so completely destroy the faith of the students in the supernatural that there will not be one jot or tittle left, how can even a modernist preacher claim that these students are still Christians? What sort of Christianity is it that this kind of teaching does not conflict with and destroy ? But to show you that evolutionists make no effort to deny or disguise the fact that their doctrine is destruc tive of Christianity, look at this: I hold here the latest book that has been published on Darwin. This book is written by Gamaliel Bradford^ and published by Houghton Mifflin Company," off the press last~year. The name of the book is “Darwin,” and you see here a large picture of that gentleman on the paper cover of wrapper. See here in the upper right hand corner this statement in quotation marks:
“He made hell a laughing stock and heaven a dream.”
According to this statement Darwinism destroys all. hope of a future life. It makes hell an invention of the heathen and heaven the dream of a poet or a religious fanatic.
Then at the bottom of this wrapper we have these words: "The life story of a gentle, tolerant, and lovable f man who overturned the world of thought, shifted ( the whole attitude of science, and upheaved the very foundations of religion and morality." I do not know whether the author or the publisher is responsible for these words on this cover. Nor do I mean to question what is said about Darwin as a man. It is the effect that his doctrine had upon the world that we are interested in. If he “upheaved the foundations of religion and morality”, how say some that it does not conflict with Christianity? Christianity had been here for 1,800 years when Darwin gave us his theory, but this book says Darwin upheaved its foundations. And note h says he upheaved the foundations of morality also. When we consider the woeful breakdown in morals since the theory of evolution began to be taught to every school child in the land, we can well believe this statement. Leopold said that the crime of kidnapping and killing Bobby Franks for the purpose of studying the sex reaction in death was no worse than that committed when an entomologist impales a beetle on a pin. Why should it be considered any worse if man is only an evolved beetle? And man has become what he is on the principle of the survival of the fittest or the rise of the strong on the Weakness of the weak—by his ability to out-kill his fellow- brutes. That is the theory! No wonder it upheaved the foundation of morality. Who that believes that would “resist not him that is evil” or love his enemy and pray , for those who persecute him, or weep with those who weep?
Oh, I know Henry Drummond tried to inject an element of altruism into this bloody-might-makes-right theory, but Sir J. Arthur Thompson says the fact remains that man has gone upstairs on the bones of weaker beings.
Yes, the fruits of the theory prove conclusively that it upheaved the very foundations of morality.
Bearing on this question of morality, here is a very frank admission by one of the most distinguished and most ardent evolutionists of our time. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborne, in his “Impressions of Great Naturalists”, says: I do not see that Darwin’s supreme service to his fellow-men was his demonstration of evolution. Man could have lived on quite as happily, and perhaps more morally, under the old notion that he was specially made in the image of his Maker. (Quoted and criticised by J. Arthur Thompson on page 196 of “The Gospel of Evolution.”) But some of these evolution-believing preachers are goiug to tell you that these men that I have quoted are all atheistic evolutionists and that they (the preachers) are theistic evolutionists. They will wisely explain that theistic evolutionists believe in God and that God created everything, but that He did it by law—natural law—hence by the process of evolution. And with an arrogant tilt of their heads they imply that theirs is a very superior, learned and modern attitude.
Oh, yes, I know that claim and I once thought I was a theistic evolutionist. I didn’t know anything about theism or evolution, either (however, I knew as much as the college students and most of the teachers of today know. They have not investigated any more than I had),, but I thought evolution was true and I knew I believed in God and I heard somebody say that one who held that attitude was a theistic evolutionist, and I said, “that settles it. I am one of the big ones.” But you have noticed, my friends, that the question I am discussing is, Does evolution conflict with Christianity? Now, there is a big difference in a theist and a Christian. John Fiske was a theist and an evolutionist, but he was not a Christian. All Jews are theists, but they are not Christians. It is conceivable that a man can be a theist and an evolutionist, hence a theistic evolutioist— Darwin was that—but how can a man be a Christian— a believer in Christ as the Redeemer of the world—and be an evolutionist? How can he believe in the virgin birth, the vicarious atonement and the resurrection from the dead and other miracles when evolution denies miracles? Furthermore, evolution teaches that man has developed from a tiny cell up through fish, amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal stages. And then after he reached the mammal stage he went up gradually, step by step, until he reached his present condition. A continuous, upward climbing. Hence there was no “fall”, according to the theory. No ruin.
Now Christianity is a remedial system. A remedy pre-supposes a ruin. If there was no fall, no ruin, then there is no room for a Redeemer. Then Christ was not the gift of God’s love to save a perishing world! The world was not perishing, but evolving, climbing higher and higher, from ape to man and from man to super-man, and from super-man to demi-god and up and up and up!
Christ Himself was the product of evolution and the Son of a monkey!!!
Now what will you say about your preacher who believes in evolution? But that is not all yet: How can an evolutionist believe in the immortality of the soul? If man has a soul, where did he get it and when? Do apes also have souls? At what point in man’s evolution did he get his soul? How did he get it? Was it evolved by natural processes and was it once in rudimentary form? Hence did half men—Pithecanthropus and others—have half souls? If you say God gave man his soul full blown by miracle, then how can you claim to be an evolutionist? Why deny any miracle? If you say man has no soul, how can you claim to be a Christian ? The truth is, a consistent evolutionist does not believe that man is immortal. Some of them believe that the race will become immortal. In his lecture on “The Destiny of Man Viewed in the Light of His Origin”, John Fiske said that considering the fact that man has come from nothing to his present condition we may well believe that he will yet attain immortality. But this does not promise you or me, as individuals, anything. It does not promise the generations that are dead anything. Even if man does continue to evolve until he outwits death and lives on forever, we are only a strata in that upward march, and future generations will go upstairs on our bones. If we have been created and developed by evolution, we can not claim exemption from the law of dissolution. Death awaits us and the grave is our goal. Those who have fallen asleep have perished, our hope is in vain and our testimony is false and Christians are of all men the worst deluded—IF, if the theory is true.
IV. But—Has the Theory of Evolution been Established? Is Evolution True ? Whatever is true will stand, whether we believe it or deny it. If evolution is actually true and all the forces of nature are right now busily engaged in the process, then nothing we can do or say will have any effect upon it. But if Christianity is true, then all the evolutionists, infidels, atheists, and demons can not destroy it, but they can destroy the faith of many and cause them to be lost. There can be no sensible reason for holding to anything that is false, and especially none for fighting for it; being false, it will fail some day in spite of all you can do and then your time and labor is lost. Bet us be honest therefore in answering this question:
Let us hear what some of these scientists say. In 1925 Dr. L. T\ Moore, of jthe University of Cincinnati, delivered a series of lectures on evolution at Princeton University These lectures are published in a book called “The Dogma of Evolution”. On page 160 of that book we have this frank statement: The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone; exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion. Our faith in the idea of evolution depends on our reluctance to accept the antagonistic doctrine of special creation.
There we have it from an honest scientist. One of the very strongest “proofs” that evolutionists can adduce is based on paleontology, but Dr. Moore says that it only convinces one who studies it that evolution is based on faith alone —not on facts. And the strength of a man’s faith in the doctrine will be determined by his attitude toward the Bible—the Bible account of creation, says Dr. Moore. Therefore the best and strongest evolutionist is the atheist! Your own observation will confirm that. Ernest Haeckel was a blatant atheist and he went so far with his application of Darwin’s ideas that Darwin wrote him, “Your boldness makes me tremble.” (Quoted by Gamaliel Bradford in this book—“Darwin”.) But hear other scientists. Lord Kelvin said:
I marvel at the undue haste with which teachers in our universities and preachers in our pulpits are restating truth in the terms of evolution while evolution itself remains an unproved hypothesis in the laboratories of science.
Hear Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan, of Columbia University :
Within the period of human history we do not know of a single instance of the transformation of one species into another one. .. It may be claimed that the theory of descent is lacking, therefore, in the most essential feature that it needs to place the theory on a scientific basis. This must be admitted.—“Evolution and Adaptation,” p. 43. The theory proved? Why, it is not on a sound scientific basis—lacks the most essential feature of being scientific. Yet they tell our children that nobody but an ignoramus doubts it!!
Dr. Ethridge, of the British Museum, said: In all this great Museum there is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species. Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer non-sense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts. This museum is full of proof of the utter falsity of their views. (Quoted by practically all the anti-evolution writers.) As a final quotation on this point I want you to hear this from Dr. Millkain This speech was delivered in Los Angeles in August, 1923. it was reported by Associated Press under a date-line of Aug. 7. I give it to you in the reporter’s own words—let him tell you about Dr. Millikan, whom he was addressing and what he said. Hear it:
Scientific dogmatism, as well as the religious brand, was denounced by Dr. Robert A. Millikan, Noble prize winner and internationally famous, in an address before the American Chemical Society here last night.
Dr. Millikan, who himself opened a new era in scientific investigation with his exploration of the atom, told his audience of prominent chemists that the development of the last quarter century of all the physical sciences should teach men of learning to be “more modest and thoughtful.”
“We must learn to get away from our assertiveness and dogmatism, whether scientific or theological,” he said. “I see over assertiveness from scientists in connection with such things as the late evolution trial ana I see on the other side assertiveness on subjects about which I know nobody knows anything.
“The pathetic thing is that we have scientists who are trying to prove evolution, which no scientist can ever prove. Now, i don’t, want you to forget that either. On the other side, I am not. I am only asking for more caution. “We must not bite off more than we can chew. We must not take a few facts and then draw conclusions. This applies both to the theologian and the scientist. Both should learn the lesson of modesty.” The title of Dr. Millikan’s address was “What’s It All About?” That was taken from the Nashville Banner and that is the complete report of his speech—that is all that was given in that paper. I doubt if papers ouside of Tennessee published that much of the Associated Press dispatch. Dr. Millikan is a famous scientist and he was addressing a society of scientists, but he said evolution is not proved and can never be proved and that does not suit the news-papers. That isn’t ’‘News”. But I will not say that other papers didn’t give prominence to this speech. I didn’t see it in any of them.
Dr. Millikan says it is pathetic that any scientist will try to prove evolution: that no scientist can ever prove it. That, is strong enough for any of us. Why will not teachers and students and the public in general listen to what these real scientists say instead of accepting without a qualm or a question the false claims of pseudo-scientists?
After such statements from scientists it seems unnecessary to examine any of the arguments that evolutionists rely upon to prove the theory—the very effort being pathetic—but we will see what they are, anyway.
2. The arguments examined. The proofs of evolution may be grouped under these five heads:
1. Comparative Anatomy.
2. Paleontalogy.
3. Embryology.
4. Vestigial Organs.
5. Experiments of Breeders.
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. Comparative anatomy, of course, deals with the resemblances between the human form and the form of lower animals. Scientists tell us that many structures are on exactly :he same pattern. They say that the flipper of a whale, the wing of a bird, the leg of a cat and the arm of a man are homologous —not as seen outwardly, but found to be so by dissection. From this they conclude that we all evolved from a common ancestor. But why can not we just as logically conclude that we were all created by One Common Creator? Especially since evolutionists can’t explain our differences which are certainly greater than our similarities. The difference is so great that no anatomist would mistake a single bone in an ape’s frame for a human bone.
PALEONTOLOGY. Paleontology is the science of fossil remains of ancient living things. When we talked about Pitheconthropus and Eoanthropus, and other fictitious gentlemen, we saw what evolutionists have to offer in this line. You remember, too, that Dr. Moore said the more we study paleontology the more we see that there is no proof in it for evolution. It has been claimed by some evolutionists that the fossils are found in regular sequence in the geological strata. This was called the “theory of conformation and succession,” or “the onion skin theory”; but it is now known to be false. Of course paleontologists do find the fossils of animals that are now extinct—none like them existing now—but there is no evidence that they evolved into something else. But this so-called Tree of Life is cut off high above the ground. The very lowest forms of life ever found were fully developed animals with perfect organs that functioned. There are no remains of animals with half formed organs—nothing between the one cell animal and the animal with a perfect structure or organism.
EMBRYOLOGY. Evolutionists tell us that the embryo passes through all the stages in its development that the human race has passed through in coming up from the primordial protoplasmic cell to the present state. This is known as the recapitulation theory. They claim that in some stages the embryo resembles a fish, has gills, and then later it resembles an ape, etc. This doctrine was given prominence by Ernest Haeckel, and all evolutionists who make this argument have been influenced by him. He called this the primary biogenetic principle. But he practiced fraud in order to work out his twenty- four different successive changes. He “schematized” his plates in putting out his pictures. He put parts of a monkey embryo with a human embryo. His frauds were exposed by his associate scientists in his own laboratories. He admitted this trickery. But still evolutionists use his books!
VESTIGIAL ORGANS. Evolutionists tell us that we have ii* our bodies vestiges of organs that we once used in a former stage of our existence, but which now are useless—only vestiges and on the way to be eliminated. I think they say we have about 188 such organs. The vermiform appendix is the remains of a stomach that we used when we were wood eating animals. The tonsils are the remains of gills, the pineal gland an eye, the coccyx a tail, etc. They say you have behind your ears and attached to the ears, muscles which are dormant now, but which you used to wiggle your ears when you were a mule.
If you will notice the hair on a man’s arm you will see that the hair on the upper arm slopes from the shoulder toward the elbow, and that on the lower arm slopes from the wrist toward the elbow. Do you know what caused that? Evolutionists can explain it. They sav that when we were in the ape stage of our develop- gpftt sitting on th£ limb of a tree in the rain, we clasped our hands upon our heads to protect ourselves from the hard rain. *he water, of course, xan down the forearm and off at the elbow. Likewise it ran down from the shoulder and off at the elbow. That started the hair to growing toward the elbow on both sections of the arm. (Laughter.) Don’t laugh at that, my friends, that is science (?) ! That is one of the proofs of man’s monkey origin. An evolutionist told me not long ago that no intelligent evolutionist ever made that argument. Well, I got that from Henry Drummond’s book, “The Ascent of Man,” and from the chapter called, “The Scaffolding Left in the Body.” I call Henry Drummond an intelligent man. The only evidence against him is that he was an evolutionist. As to these so-called vestigial organs: Do you know that evolutionists once claimed that the thyroid glands were vestigial? You have right up in the top of your head a little gland that is called the pineal gland. Evolutionists say this is the remains of an eye, now useless, and might as well be cut out. But the scientists have now discovered that it is vital to growth and development. They could cut it out of a child’s head and the child would live, but it would be a dwarf—its mind would not clevelope. Now suppose some evolutionist had cut out your pineal gland! Some of them must have had theirs extracted in infancy. (Laughter.)
Furthermore, we know that the male of the genus homo—even Homo sapiens—has vestiges of the mammary glands. At what stage of his evolution did man suckle the young? May be you think these proofs (?) conclusive. If so, we say, “If Baal be God, serve Baal.”
EXPERIMENTS OF BREEDERS. Evolutionists tell us that the fact that breeders can by carefully selecting the type of animal desired and by breeding for that type, finally produce it, proves the theory of natural selection, which is the foundation of. evolution. That breeders can do that, we all admit. Thus they produce beef cattle and milk cattle; the race horse and the draft horse. But this is artificial selection. This selecting is done by man and he carefully chooses the animals he mates and keeps them fenced away from others. If these animals were left to their own choice, would they thus mate and keep the breeds distinct? That is what natural selection requires. But while man may do wonders in developing certain characteristics by selective breeding, he can never breed a cow into a horse, or a sheep into a hog. He can not change the species or produce a new one. Yet evolution says that natural selection produced all the millions of species. That animals unaided so mated as to produce new types! Do you think artificial selection proves natural selection?
V. The failure of evolution to account for (1)
Then to keep from saying ignorahimus—we will continue to be ignorant—he speculates on possibilities. And his possibilities leave out the Creator. Special creation is not among possibilities with evolutionists. They claim that the blind forces of nature operating upon inorganic matter turned it into organic and then turned the organic unto vital or living. If the blind forces of nature did this once they have never done it again, hence it was a miracle. The forces of nature are destructive. They will turn organic matter into inorganic, but not the reverse. Here stands a fine young man with a perfect physique. Shoot a few thousand volts of electricity through him and he is dead. Here lies a perfect body; the organs are all there intact—a wonderful machine already created. Now leave it untouched and let the forces of nature operate. Will these forces that once formed a body out of inorganic matter and then put life into it now put life back into this organism that already exists? No, they will not, but they will begin at once to disintegrate and destroy that body—to turn it into inorganic matter. Do you believe that these forces ever did reverse themselves—that natural law turned unnatural for once and performed a special act of special creation? Why not rather believe that Jehovah did the creating and then set these natural laws to work?
Then, after discussing some few freaks or exceptions which radicals cite as cases, and showing that they do not prove the point, he says: For my part it seems better to go back to the old and safe ignoramus standpoint.— (Quoted in God or Gorilla, p. 2.) Yes, “it is better to be safe than sorry.”
Evolution can never even claim to be science till it can show the transmutation of species. It is only philosophical speculation.
(5) Evolution can not tell how the organs of the body developed. They tell us that the organs change from one form into another—the gills into lungs for instance—by modification to meet conditions—existing organs gradually changing. But they can not tell how the original organs developed. We naturally wonder how our distant ancestors pro-created before the organs of pro-creation developed or while they were in rudi-mentary and non-usable form! Also, what environment brought out these organs? If pro-creation was carried on without them what was the need for them? These may be ignoramus questions, but if we wait for evolutionists to answer them we would as well say ignorabimus, right now.
Scientists have now repudiated the doctrine that held that acquired characters are transmitted to the offspring; and that leaves them absolutely without any explanation as to how the organs of the body developed. Also without any explanation as to the method or causes of evolution. They used to teach, following I.amarck, that the organs began in the smallest way in one generation, because of some use to which these symptoms of an organ —these potential organs then existing only the prophecy of a pigment—were put. Hence these rudiments of organs were passed on to the next generation and were used by it and therefore developed a little further, but still very imperfect and rudimetary, they descended to the next generation to be used and further developed. Thus after some millions of generations an organ—say a leg or an arm or an eye—was perfected. Each generation inheriting the little growth and dexterity acquired by the preceding generation. But now scientists know that what one generation acquires can not be passed on to the next.
Dr. Winterton C. Curtis says (Science and Human Affairs, p. 170): Of late years the failure to obtain conclusive evidence for the inheritance of characters acquired by the individual has told heavily against the theory. [Lamarckian Theory—Brewer.] It would seem that if such inheritance occurs we should by now have secured experimental proof. Convincing proofs have not been forthcoming. The majority of biologists, therefore, regard the Lamarckian Theory as distinctly not proved. Many go so far as to believe there is small chance of its ever being proved.
Therefore this gradual development is not accounted for—could not have taken place unless one generaticn could inherit the advantage gained by the preceding one. Then complete perfection must have been attained in one generation. But if attained or acquired it could not have been transmitted to the next generation. How then did a one-cell, organless, structureless animal develop into an animal with perfect organs? How did t develop into millions of different animals with divergent organs, many and multiplex?
Verily this theory that is put forth as’an explanation of the whole riddle of the universe has some enigmas of its own!
If one species will not pass from one into another one, then these species must always have been distinct and did not emerge from a common ancestor and change gradually from one to another until millions of species— unrelated and uncrossable--were produced. If they did not do this then they started separate and distinct, and evolution is not true. The Bible teaches that they were created separate, and each divinely ordained to bring forth after its kind. That law still prevails and all that scientists have learned confirms and establishes it.
If acquired characters are not transmitted to offspring then one generation could not profit by any development attained by a preceding generation; therefore man could not have gradually developed through a long series of evolving generations, but must have sprung fully developed into existence. The Bible teaches that he was made by an intelligent Creator in that Creator’s image. Evolution denies this, but can not even begin to tell how man came. It offers only a fabric of wild and untenable speculations. Are you willing to give up God, Christ and the Bible; your refuge in the pavilion of prayer and your hope of heaven to follow this “will o‘ the wisp” through the slime and ooze of pre-historic darkness, only to pitch headlong at last over a precipice into oblivion ?
Choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve God. I thank you,
(Applause.)
LITERATURE I am more or less indebted to all the following books for the arguments, pro and con, of this lecture: FOR EVOLUTION “Origin of Species,” by Charles Darwin.
“The Descent of Man,” by Charles Darwin.
“The Voyage of the Beagle,” by Charles Darwin.
“Science in Human Affairs,” by W. C. Curtis.
“Evolution of Today,” by H. W. Conn.
“The Primary Factors of Evolution,” by E. D. Cope.
“Men of the Old Stone Age,” by H. F. Osborne.
“The Earth Speaks to Bryan,” by H. F. Osobrne.
“The Ascent of Man,” by Henry Drummond.
“Science Remaking the World,” by Caldwell and Slos- son.
“From the Unconscious to the Conscious,” by Gustave Geley.
“Landmarks in the Struggle Between Science and Religion,” by J. Y. Simpson.
“Evolution and Creation,” by Sir Oliver Lodge.
“The Mind in the Making,” by J. H. Robinson.
“Science and Religion,” by J. Arthur Thompson.
“The Gospel of Evolution,” by J. Arthur Thompson.
“The Outline of Science,” Edited by J. Arthur Thompson.
“Darwin,” by Gamaliel Bradford.
“Nineteenth Century Evolution and After,” by Marshall Dawson.
(This author tries to harmonize the Bible and Evolution. He emasculates both, but does some fine moralizing.) AGAINST EVOLUTION “Pro Fide,” by Charles Harris.
“Organic Evolution Considered,” by Alfred Fairhurst.
“Theistic Evolution,” by Alfred Fairhurst.
“The Problem of Human Life Here and Hereafter,” by A. Wilford Hall.
“Debates on Evolution,” Baker-Nichol Shipley.
“The Phantom of Organic Evolution,” by George Mc- Cready Price.
“The Predicament of Evolution,” by George McCready Price.
“I. E. D.,” by George McCready Price.
“The Case Against Evolution,” by George Barry O’Toole.
“God—or Gorilla,” by A. W. McCann.
“Evolution at the Bar,” by Philip Mauro.
“The Divine Demonstration,” by H. W. Everest.
“The Bible Versus Theories of Evolution,” Edited by E. A. Elam.
“Evolution and the Supernatural,” by H. W. Griffith Thomas.
“Beyond the Natural Order,” by Nolan Rice Best.