REPLY TO COMRADE PRICE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 June 1912, Page 8

REPLY TO COMRADE PRICE

[to the eijitou.J

.-Sir, —1 said in my last letter Christians had no need to be afraid of an appeal to reason.. Let science scrutinise as site may the secrets of Nature, and go on until, she forms of Nature herself a vast, and admirably classified museum for the spirit of man. Faith in God has nothing to fear from her researches. i admit that knowledge brings its intoxication. The mind, which has grasped a planet in its span, is lain lo lay ctifim to universal knowledge, to recognise no limits to its dominion, and to ignore those which outlie it./ Hence the too frequent tendency of ages of scientific discovery to narrow the horizon of thought, to bring it within the lower sphere of things, so as to spare itself the humiliation of acknowledging that above all and beyond all the known stretches the region of the infinite and the Divine. It is iiot then the progress of science which threatens faith in the supernatural, but the insensate infatuations of some of its votaries. When Professor Huxley found what he thought was spontaneous life (he named it Bathybius), Dr. Strauss said educated men could no longer be Christians. Genesis must be rejected because this (Bathybius) spontaneous life did away with the Creator. When Bathybius was tried it was found wanting. It proved to be sulphate of lime, and Huxley acknowledged that it turned out a fraud The theory, 1 think, stood about twelve years, and was then abandoned. Another theory that has gone is the nebular theory. The science of Nature in its mighty current sets aside the theories which have essayed to endow matter with the faculty of i transforming and originating life. Neither the theory of natural selection, nor that of spontaneous life, has been aole to aland the test of a close and impartial examination. Nature, presents herself Lo us upon a uniform plan. She forms a ladder upon which existences are disposed by rank; but in such sort, that they cannot of themselves laiso themselves from one step of the ascending line to another. A plan marvellously wise is unfolded in the general arrangement of the series, and the hand of the Creator appears in each new link. The work then cannot be confounded with the worker, since Nature is powerless to pass alone the space comprised between any two species. The Bible and science both place man as the last of creative work. The animal is a miracle on the vegetable kingdom, so is man a miracle on the animal. A /being is at the head of that kingdom that can control-Nature to a certain extent and is lord over all- the other kingdoms. They are. subject to him, and man is subject to his Creator. Now for some of the proof oi man’s descent (Harmsworth popular science, page 516) —“The use of the word evolution to mean that man is descended from the chimpanzee is ignorant and absurd. Its use to mean the theory of Darwin’s that species have originated by natural selection is scarcely less so.” Professor E. Hitchcock: The whole depth of rock in which animal remains have been dug is between fifty and sixty thousand feet, but I know of nowhere that man has been found below one hundred feet and that in the latest deposits-. Professors Dana, Aggasiz. Dawson ,etc., bear the same testimony. Professor Dana acknowledged as the prince of geologists, states: “No remains of fossil man bear evidence of less perfect erectness of structure' than in civilised man, or to any nearer approach to the ape in essential characteristics. The existing man apes belong to lines that reached up to them as their ultimatum, but of that line which is supposed to have reached up lo man, not the first link below the lowest level of existing man has yet been found.” This is the more extraordinary in view of the fact that from the lowest limits in existing man there are all possible gradations up to the highest, while below- that limit there is an abrupt fall to the ape level in which the cubic capacity of the brain is one half that of main If the links ever existed their annihilation without trace is so extremely improbable that it may be pronounced impossible. Until some are found science cannot assert that they ever existed. Professor Post visited the British Museum of National History and asked Mr Etheridge, the forfemost expert of the museum, to show him some proof of Darwin’s evolution theory, and was told in all this great institution that there was not a particle of evidence of transmutation of species. It is thus not founded on observation and facts. The talk of the antiquity of man is of the same value. Professor Flelschmann recently delivered a course of lectures in

entitled the “Dio Darwin Theories.” He comes to the conclusion that the Darwinian theory of the cles.-ent of m.an has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of Nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination. Professor ITotheroe iu his book, ’’Natural History of Mammals” refutes the Darwinian theory, Quatyufages says of the 22 animals in this pedigree representing man's descent, pot one hag been seen either fossil or alive, Professor Sollis says it is on its trial. 1 have here another score of eminent Professors who .have either rejected it all or most. Professor Ha-eckel admits that six or eight per cent of his plates were forged. See the whole question in “Evolution Exploded,” by the Christian Evidence Association. Now, Comrade, [Re slight projection on the outer margin of the ear has assumed portentous proportions. The possession of that precious relic, which has turned up suddenly like the hero of a novel, proves our kinship to the ape race and gives us a place on an unsuspected family tree. Comrade, it is natural for hair to droop, and also natural to use your hand in a dangerous position. They were given for use. If you were aboard a ship taking in nail, Comrade, ypp >vould see men holding the canvas in their teeth. They were given .to be used. This finishes the discussion as far as I am concerned. I have shown by testimony that it is not a proven fact man’s descent from the beast, I am, etc., — P. BURT,