MR M'CABE’S ADDRESS.

Evening Star, Issue 18332, 20 July 1923, Page 2

MR M'CABE’S ADDRESS.

TO TDK EDITOIV

| Sir, —Mr Joseph M'Cabe, in his recent lectures, told us th<jt if wa did not limit . our population wo would bo crowded off [ tho earth, as thero would not bo sufficient [ food produced to feed tho people. This is an old problem, debated by Plato and Aristotle before tho Christian era. So • Rationalism had to fall back on the > gloomy outlook and remedy of Thomas ■ Malthus and tho ancients. Professor Al- ■ fred Marshall, relying on the imprbve- ; ments in production (seo 1 Principles of 1 Economics, page 237), refers to the im- ’ provements in the arts of agriculture that will counterbalance any increase in popu--1 lation. In addition Socialists point out that by common ownership of land for 1 the use of all the people the productive capacity can be increased manifold. Tho groat bulk of the earth is still in a virgin state, and to frighten the peopla away from tho Church a horrid picture is presented of starvation by overcrowding unless wo practice abortion or other horrors connected with tho Rationalist doctrine of limitation. Mr M'Cabe tells of the fact that 7,000,000 people in London alone do not go to church as proof that religion is a thing of the past. But tho same paper in which Mr M'Cabo’s speech was reported told of a procession of bishops and priests of the Anglican Catholic Church which had restored the ecclesiastical practices of the Roman Catholic Church. How did these 900 bishops and priests live if tho people had nothing to do with tho Church f In another column appeared an article written by some nerve-racked, horror-stricken scribe about tho astonishing increase in Roman Catholics in Glasgow. Here, then, we road of the increase m orthodox Churches at a lime when Mr M'Cabe loads ns to believe religion is a thing of tho past. Mr M'Cabe went to groat trouble to prove that God had notning to do with I the creation of man. If the existence of God be denied, what other explanation of the origin of life is forthcoming, save that of spontaneous generation ? It is unfortunate, however, for the propounders of this theory that the spontaneous generation of organic matter has never been demonstrated, and there is not a single instance on record of such an occurrence I having ever taken place. Pasteur, on the I contrary, has effectively demonstrated that when non-living matter is loft to itself no life arises. “As a matter of stern fact science has never been able to, and cannot now, bridge the gulf that divides tho inorganic from the organic world. The idea that man lias evolved from a lower form of animal life, say from tho ape, remains but an idea. It is a theory only, and not a fact.” Quatrcfnges tells us that “it is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles of Darwinism, that an organised being cannot bo descended of another whose development is in an inverse order to its own,” and ho states, unequivocally, that “ man cannot be considered as tho descendant of any simian ] typo whatever.” Virchow, whose fame as a scientist is world-wide, declares that | “ when we study the quarternary fossil I man, who certainly should resemble our original ancestors more than wo do, wo ! always find a man like ourselves.” And ho also says that “ when we compare tho whole fossil remains known until now with the present state of things we may boldly say that among tho men now living there exist a much greater number of individuals relatively inferior than among tho fossils in question. If man is intelligent, the cause that produced him must also be intelligent, since, if there were no intelligence in the cause, how could intelligence bo found in tho effect ? To sot up an unintelligent cause for an intelligent effect seems to argue simply that intelligence proceeds from no intelligence.”—f am, etc., J. E. MacManus. July 20.