THE ORIGIN OF MAN—IS DARWIN RIGHT?

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume IV, Issue 537, 25 May 1882, Page 2

THE ORIGIN OF MAN—IS DARWIN RIGHT?

The above was the title of the lecture delivered by Mr Denton in Ewart’s Hall on Tnesdav evening to a crowded house. The lecturer commenced by saying that we were-living i i a world teeming with life both animal a.nl vegetable. i he highest and most glorious of all the forms of life was mail, and the first question that arose in the mind of every thinking man was “How came we into existence?' No student of science to-day believed in the. miraculous creation of all things. They knew that our world was brought into existence by the operation of natural laws and so were all the forni3 of life successively developed, and the process was still go’ng on. Not very long ago the thunder was thought to he the voice of an angry G'od and °tlie lightning the flash of his terrible eye, while tnc tornado was the breath of his 'wrath. Now however, we knew that the thunder and lighting, the tornado and the earthquake were all produced by natural causes. The scientific man looked to natural causes for everything. In the museums there was no miracle department, and the man who asked for it would probably be treated as a lunatic. A miracle in fact was an absolute impossibility, and the days of belief in them were passed away. If by God was meant the Infinite. Eternal and Glorious Spirit which governed all the universe by the aid of natural laws, then lie believed in the existence of. such a God. He believed that life appeared on this p’anet just as soon as the conditions were ready for it, and that mail also appeared when the conditions were suitable to bis existence. They were told that the air was swarming with myriads of germs of life, and so it was, but there was such a thing as spontam ms generation, for various experiments had been successful in developing life in water wlvc'.i had been heated Yo 205 degrees and excluded from the air. 'J’liis however, was not one of those questions which had been settled, but in his opinion the evidence so far was in favor of the theory of spontaneous generation. Nothing in the uuivcisc was. dead, but everything was teeming with life ready to come into existence. He had no doubt whatever that when the surface of this planet became cool enough, life had developed itself under favorable conditions of heat and moisture. When these first animals began to propagate tneir progeny began to vary from the original stock, just as in the present day we could observe variations in the children of the same parents. Let the deviations proceed for thousands of years and what an enormous change there would he from the original stock' He did not believe that this law of variation could produce an eye or an ear where there were none before, hut there was also the law of tendency, and that from the very start of this world there had been a tendency to produce the great organic forms of life which were found on its surface to-day, Then there was the law of hereditary transmission by which peculiarites were handed down. Nature took care that when she did make an advance that advance should be handed down and further added to. The law of modification by which life was suited to its surroundings was also to be seen in operation in many interesting forms, su'-’n as the stunted trees on the mountain tops while their brethren of the s um: species in the valleys towered to the height of hundreds of feet. The

blind fishes of the Wyandotte Cave were another instance of the law of modification in operation. Those who saw in everything the working of Providence said here was a wonderful example of its operation, for the fish were made blind because eyes would have been of no use to them in the darksome caves. Before believing this, however, he preferred to examine tho fish, and on examination there were the eyes to be found under the skin, the optic nerve and the optic lobe of the brain, showing plainly enough that the fishes could once see, but when they had no use for their eyes they gradually became smaller and smaller with each generation till there were none left at all. Let a man tie up his right hand and lie would find that after a few months it would he hardly any use to him. Want of exorcise would destroy its strength, just as some men’s br.v 13 were of little tue to them lor want of exercise. As the conditions of life improved so did the organic life improve. Ho differed from Darwin on the question of the beginning of life for he could never believe i.i a dead world. To him tho world was full of life, and it only needed favorable conditions to bring it into e::is : once. Darwin, however, was quite right on the question of natural selection, by which law the weakest and least favored did not survive. The believers in Providence pointed to the red grouse in the red heather as a womhi ful adaptation of Providence fertile protection of the grouse from the hawks ami birds of pray which hovered over the heathery moon seeking t.o devour them, hut the first question which presented itself to him wr.-. Where is the Providence for the hawk which wanted its dinner? He did not believe in a Providence which went about sticking in its linger here and providing for one tiling while neglecting another. It was far more reasonable to suppose that the red grouse had been produced by the ope/atki i of law. Suppose for instance that at fist all grouse were white and that ono or two were horn which were of the same color as the heather. These latter would not be seen by tho birds of prey and would perpetuate their species, while the while o les would ho exposed to tho a blacks of Heir enemies. The operation of law was everywhere visible and the forms of life were always in harmony with their surroundings 1 Though man was the result of the great laws lie had referred to there was the eternal spirit within him. The laws were the methods and manifestations of tho Infinite Spirit tbatguided the universe. Ifo himself was a thoroughly religious mao and ho believed in a great Eternal Spirit governing all tilings by the operation of law. It did not follow that if man was developed from the brutes he should also die as the brutes do, or rather as wc say they do, for ho did not quite believe that all brutes perished at death in the sense usually understood by that term as applied to them. He drew a comparison between man and t’ o brutes using a ripe and unripe app'e as an illiistrallon. Both the ripe and the unripe .apple were the same except that one had become more fully developed, hut i? wc buried the unripe apple its seeds would not g ow, while those of the ripe one would live and produce. So the brutes in'gut he like unripe apples and u hen they died there was an end of them, but man, like the perfect fruit, Hied to live again. The lecturer said there was nothing of which he was more absolutely ccit.ain than that man lived after death. The body was no more the man than his great-coat was, and he lihnsdf knew for a positive and certain fact that when lii.s body had been pbieed in tile ground his spirit would survive for ever. He would like to direct the attention of libs audience to the law of metamorphosis by which animals during their growth completely changed their structure and habits. Tim lecturer then detailed the progress of the frog and the siik moth from the germs go the finished animals. The frog began from a germ or egg just as all tilings old. It was an amphibian, and as its ancestors were developed from fish it had to follow the fish fife in its progress till it became the perfect frog. In like manner all insects had to travel the same lines as the worms, because the first insects were produced from worms. fA'.iimuls at one period of their progress are all alike, aud the germ which produeesa fly is undistinguisliahle from that which produces a man. Man was produced from an egg as small as that which produced tho smallest forms of mammalian life wc knew aud during his foetal progress he resembled at different times, first a fist), then a reptile, then 'a bird, until at last lie assumed the form of man. There was a similarity of sti.icture now in the fish, the reptile, the lower mammal, a id man, which could he ea ily traced. There was a greater difference) between the average Australian aboriginal and the highest Caucasian than there was between the Australian and the highest monkey'— a fact that the opponents of the theory of development could not get over. 'J’iie redundant organs, too, were significant pointers, amt oould never have been made by miracle—they wore the remains of organs that were otice used. It was no more ridiculous, U 3 some thought, to say that man’s grandfather was a gorilla and his grandmother ail oyster, than to say that lie was made out of dust. " But," said the man who believed in the dust theory, I believe that God made man.” Well, if bv that it was meant that some miracleworker canio down and witli his hands fashioned man out of the dust and sent him on his way with life in him, all he could say was that he did not believe it. If it was said that man was made by the Infinite Spirit which ruled the world and guided the whole universe and extent of nature, then he would say that lie believed that man was made by such a God as that. Were they to believe that man was created in a miraculous manner, in an instant, after God’s own image, for God’s own delight, and that in 6000 years he had degenerated into the state of savagery and hideousness shown in tho portraits exhibited on the stage which looked as though they had been made by some devil in his spite. If we were to believe that all this degeneration had happened in 0000 years, what was to happen in the thousands of years to come, when, upon such a theory wc must go lower and lower, until wo became reptiles crawling over the face of the earth. Was there not something degrading about such a belief as that ? Or was it degrading to believe that man had developed, as lie believed, getting higher and higher until it was impossible to conceive the height to which he might reach? In his opinion the degradation was all on the other side. Some people made a fuss about missing links. One hundred years ago we had not any chain at all, and though geology was so young there were only a few links missing. He did not j believe that man had been parented by a j brute, and the animal that did parent ; him had not been found yet, hut lift had no | doubt, when found, it would very closely j l-esemhle what we called a monkey. As to the missing link question lie would illustrate phe position taken up by nonscientists in this matter. Suppose that there was a pillar 200 fact high, and on top of that a man was placed. The question naturally arose, How did ho get there ? " Oh,” said the believer in miracles, ‘‘ai angel came down from Heaven, seized him j by the hair, and placed him there." Be-

""’’ore we believed thnfc let us see if we canno!; find some more natural and reasonable explanation, and on going behind the pillar we find a ladder with some of the rungs broken. Then wo tell the miracle-man that we have found this ladder, but be refuses to believe it, and at first will not look at it. When he is induced to look at it he says it is no ladder, because some of the rungs are cone. But at the bottom of the ladder wo discover some runes in the ground, which we take up and find they fit the broken parts exactly. We do not find all, but wc will in time, and the perfect, ladder by which man has (.-limbed into his present position will be found. Only a very few lungs, said the lecturer, are missing, and there 13 abundant proof to show that man was not lifted to his present position a 3 it were by the hair of Ids head and the hands of an angel, but that he is the fruit of laws operating through the millions of years in the ages of the past, lie did rot wish to mako all his audience believe as he did without stopping to inquire. Truth, however, was tiie one thing needful to know, and his object was to a.-ouse them to think for themselves, a id when they did find a thing to be true, to he fearless i 1 expressing their convictions. The lecturer was frequently applauded during the delivery, and a hearty round was given at the conclusion. A series of excellent views were then exhibited in illustration of some of the subjects referred to in the lecture.