192 RAYMOND C. OSBURN Vol. XXII, No. 7 



human species — Neanderthal, Heidelberg, Piltdown, Foxhall 

 and Trinil Man. These extend successively farther and farther 

 back, through the different glacial periods to the later Pliocene, 

 over time variously reckoned in years around 500,000. Through 

 this succession of human species we can trace the gradual 

 development of the cranial capacity to an increase of at least 

 50%; the retraction of the face from a prognathous to an 

 orthognathous condition, the development of a chin, making 

 possible the free use of the tongue in speech; the completion of 

 the erect posture, and various other features by which man has 

 become physically differentiated from his nearest animal kin. 

 Along with this physical progress we can trace, pari passu, the 

 evolution of his civilization. 



Granted that we do not yet know all the processes by 

 which these changes in man have come about, the fact that they 

 have come to pass is so evident that only the ignorant, or he 

 who willfully ignores the truth for his own ends, will attempt 

 to dispute the fact. Place what interpretation on it you wish, 

 the fact remains. I hold no quarrel with the man who accepts 

 the fact and interprets it as the method of. a supreme being 

 for working out his eternal plan, or, as John Fiske said, "God's 

 way of doing things." 



Only we must not let our religious beliefs get the better of 

 our common sense appreciation of facts in this or any other 

 matter. There is no thing as sacred as truth, in whatever 

 form it comes, and if it interferes even with a long-established 

 belief, then it is time that the basis for that belief is looked 

 into. 



We have seen that the evidence of evolution does not rest 

 on guesses or interpretation, but on facts, and not in one field 

 only, but that astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology and all 

 the biological sciences tell the same story in the same way, that 

 of uniformity, continuity and progressive changes. 



Gradually, of course, this natural law will receive general 

 acceptance among the reading and thinking public. In the 

 meantime, whenever some misinformed or bigoted egotist 

 displays his ignorance of scientific matters, there are two things 

 which we may do ; either we may attack his mis-statements and 

 set the unscientific public in the right through the press, or we 

 may follow the plan adopted by the man who was kicked by 

 a mule, and just "consider the source." 



