THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18020, 20 February 1922, Page 4

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.

Sir,—The Rev. A. A. Murray says it ij humiliating to think that men of sens* believe that their anceitors sprang from monkeys. The best men ol sense and Bearchtirs after truth are_ not deterred by talk like this. What men of sense want to find out is the truth, whether it panders to their pride or not. When tho Copernican system of astronomy was first promulgated, "men of sense " tried to discredit it because it would be humiliating to lower our world from being the centre of the universe to being a little one-horso planet among perhaps millions of others. But the theory prevailed in spite of their carping that it was contrary to scripture and calling ' infidels' at those who advocated it and even burning somo of them at the stake. So will it be with the Darwinian theory of evolution, whose opponents are getting fewer by degrees and beautifully less. I think it i s humiliating to think that, men of sense can be pot to believe the absurd miracle stories related in the books of Genesis and Exodus. T. Tobrzns.

Sir,—ln criticising the Rev. Jasper Calder's address Mr. Murray flouts the prevalent opinion that the story of the Creation as given in Genesis is, as Mr, Calder argues, merely an Oriental allegory. In my opinio: the whole Pentateuch abounds in clever and beautiful metaphorical figures and allegories and I am surprised to find that any intelligent men still construe the books of Moses in a strict literal fense. Your correspondent would probably say that thfl story of the flood and the old idea of hell fire should be taken literally. We are told that God in addressing Noah said that there would be no more .floods to destroy the earth, that a bow would be seen in the cloud as a token thereof, To me this seems absurd, as the flood was only a local affair and the rainbow must, by the immutable laws of nature, have existed ever since there were moisture in the atmosphere and son's rays. As everybody knows the sun's rajS reflected on the spray from a garden hose will produce a rainbow. Then again it seems contrary to natural laws that vegetation should have been created— in a day, according to Mr. Murray's theory, or as is now generally believed vast ages—before the sun, moon and starry firmament were.' As to Darwin's theory of evolution I find it easier to believe in material or physical evolution than in spiritual or moral evolution. If the present race of human beings has been evolved from the ape why have not all apes equally evolved and why is the specieg still in evidence in its primitive . form? John A. Beam.