MR CHRISTIE'S EFFUSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2664, 5 April 1905, Page 28

MR CHRISTIE'S EFFUSION.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sib, — Mr Christie's reply to Professor Benham in this morning's Times is hardly worthy of refutation, for such crass ignorance as he displays must be apparent to all who possess even an elementary knowledge of natural history, geology, - and biology. The doctrine of evolution stands on a foundation of fact (not theory) so strong that myriads of attacks such as Mr Christie's will not make much impression on it. If "evolution may be defined to be a compound of superstition, imagination, and credulity," in what category, might I ask, must be placed religions, both Christian and Pagan, with all their grotesque and absurd creeds, dog-mas, primitive rites, deinonology, supernaturalism, fallacies, inconsistencies, and contradictions?

Let me " conclude by warning our intelligent young men who desire tp know and practise the truth " against such mediaeval and antiquated doctrines and exploded fallacies as your correspondent would have them follow ; and further let them approach the study of the great truth of evolution through natural selection^ free from blinding hostility, bias, and unreasoning prejudice. Let them read the works of the great biologists and evolutionists, the most readily accessible of which are Darwin, Huxley, Schmidt, Clodd, Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, Wallace, etc. with an impartial and open mind; and, abovo all, let thata not display such & painful exhibition of "'odium theologicum," whjeh. so transparent &-mftjk of so-called "scientific liberalism is insufficient to hide, and which seems, in most cases, when devotees of religion and superstition clash with men of science and oomnionsense, to result in a warping of the intellects and understandings of the said devotees. — I am, etc. t An ATHEIST* Dunedhi, April J.