Page Twelve 



EVOLUTION 



July, 1929 



come of a mighty flood that occurred some thousands 

 of years ago. Why, I disdain to argue on such a point. 

 A Fundamentalist professor in London once argued 

 that position with me and actually pointed out that in 

 England we have whole beds full of fish-like remains. 

 Why, the fish is the only animal on earth that would 

 have had its golden age if there were such a deluge. 



When it comes to the vestigial remains, Dr. Riley 

 said, "Why didn't Mr. McCabe give me one idea?" 

 I gave him one. I asked him what were those bits 

 of gristle on the side of his head. Of course, he ignor- 

 ed that. All the medical authorities in the world will 

 tell you that they are quite useless. He knows about 

 this little fleshy body on the corner of the eye. He 

 ignored it. He knows there is another, the hair on the 

 arm. He ignored it. 



But he goes to the pineal gland and he goes to the gill 

 slits. It is forty years since any scientific man main- 

 tained that the pineal gland was useless. We have been 

 experimenting thirty years, but until we discovered 

 ductless glands, no man could suspect its use. 



But when Dr. Riley ridicules for you the idea that 

 that pineal body is the remains of a third eye, why, 

 he has never read one serious word about the subject. 

 You look at a reptile and you will find that third 

 eye standing out like a billiard ball from the top of 

 the head. It runs through the entire series of animal 

 world, sinking lower and lower in the brain. I have 

 seen photographs of the entire thing, and whatever 

 new function the pineal body has turned to, it is one 

 of the most obvious things in the world that it is the 

 third eye in the top of its head. That New Zealand 

 reptile has that third eye perfectly formed under- 

 neath the skin of its head. 



Then Dr. Riley made fun of the gill slits. Will Dr. 

 Riley tell us what writer he has been reading who 

 talks of open slits? Certainly not my friend Haeckel; 

 certainly no scientific man. There are no open slits as 

 Dr. Riley said. Every scientific man will agree with 

 him. He has got that from a scientific man because 

 the slits in the condition of embryonic development 

 were closed long ago. But the gill arches are still there. 

 And what Dr. Riley has to explain is, not those closed 

 slits, but the circulation of the blood in the human 

 embryo. The arteries branch over exactly as in the 

 fish, and if Dr. Riley can tell me any reason why the 

 human embryo should have every time a perfect blood 

 circulation and heart of a fish, I shall be more inter- 

 ested in that than listening to his jokes about science. 



Those are the only points that I have taken down. 

 I mean attempts on serious intellectual points out of 

 Dr. Riley's address. I beg you to understand that I 

 refuse to deal with any but the intellectual and scien- 

 tific points. 



Is there any other point whatever that I have to 

 answer tonight? First, he denies that all scientists 

 agree. Then tell me who disagrees? 



Then he sweeps to one side the five lines of evidence 

 I put before you. He ignores entirely the most im- 

 portant topics of all, and runs on to the deluge, runs 

 on to Genesis, runs on to the growth of crime and im- 

 morality and heaven knows what. 



To that I will only make one reply. It is sixty or 

 seventy years ago since Darwin brought forth the 

 doctrine of evolution. Oh, yes, I know perfectly well 

 that the Greeks of 2,500 years ago had the rudimentary 

 idea of evolution. But Dr. Riley ought to know that 

 it did not perish of its own weakness. Who was the 

 last great representative of Greek scientific thought? 

 Hypatia. Did her doctrines die of their own weak- 

 ness? No. She was torn from her chariot by a crowd 

 of fanatical monks. 



Voices: Hear! Hear! (Applause.) 



PROFESSOR JOSEPH McCABE : With broken 

 crockery they tore the flesh from the bones of that 

 last representative of the Greeks, and that was a sym- 

 bolic act. In one mighty holocaust the whole of the 

 Greek literature and scientific instruments were des- 

 troyed by the Christians whom Dr. Riley is quoting 

 to you tonight. I wish to avoid in my debate tonight 

 the subject of religion in evolution. I am dealing with 

 that tomorrow night in the Community Church, but I 

 have been dragged on to this topic. 



Crime is expected of the doctrine of evolution. 

 Where vras the doctrine of evolution born? England. 

 And every scientific man in England for thirty years 

 has been an evolutionist, and you know what our sta- 

 tistics of crime in England are. (Applause and laugh- 

 ter.) Since Charles Darwin gave his doctrine to the 

 world we have, not in proportion to population, but 

 absolutely, cut down crime in Great Britain fifty per 

 cent. (Applause.) 



Why all this merriment? Why not give us facts? 

 I invite Dr. Riley to take up the perfectly serious lines 

 of argument that I have given you. Try again with 

 the geographical distribution of animals. Tell us what 

 did distribute them, and why the distribution coincided 

 perfectly with our evolutionary explanation. 



Dr. Riley said, I never proved that it coincided. 

 Does he expect me to deal with all the animals and 

 plants of the world in one evening in a one-quarter 

 of an hour speech? Surely it is more logical for me 

 to demand that he shall tell me at least of one ex- 

 ception. I am waiting for the one exception. 



I am waiting for the one exception, the one fossil 

 remain that has been found which is out of place, 

 according to the evolutionary principle. I am waiting 

 for the name of the one heavenly body which is not 

 in perfect accord with the doctrine of evolution. I am 

 waiting for the explanation of why, when we dis- 

 covered a new instrument, chronology, quite independ- 

 ently of geology, it coincides perfectly with the story 

 that the geologists tell. I am waiting for the answer 

 to these things. 



And if Dr. Riley is going to sacrifice the scientific 

 men, if he is going to ask me about the old scientific 

 men when the evidence was imperfect, if he is going 

 to ask us to go back to those early ages, I bring him 

 back to the situation of today. Here is a truth that 

 we have been searching with mighty instruments for 

 thirty years, and all our experts are agreed, while 

 Dr. Riley tells things on which he ventures to diff^er 

 from all those experts of the world. (Applause.) 

 (To he concluded in our next issue.) 



