CHAPTER VIII.. 



MORSE vs. PUTNAM ON EVOLUTION. THE END. 



It was during this second year's course at Penikese 

 Island, that the lectures upon evolution by Professor 

 Morse, and arguments against that theory by other of 

 the professors, formed a distinctive feature of our in- 

 struction. 



Professor Morse was evidently an ardent evolution- 

 ist, at least one would judge so from his lectures 

 and personal conversation upon the subject. He 

 gave us many interesting talks upon it and seemed 

 to have no patience with any one who did not think 

 as he thought, or believe as he believed, regarding it. 

 Some of his oft-repeated and apparently pet expres- 

 sions were: "As you culminate in any group, you 

 find features similar to those of the higher verte- 

 brates," or, "there are no forms but that, in their cul- 

 mination, point to the vertebrates;" still again, "cer- 

 tain parts of the mollusks show a resemblance to 

 man, as, for example, the eye and nerve ganglion, 

 protected by a covering, suggests the skull." 



I well remember how once the professor illustrated 

 the progression of animal life from the lowest inverte- 

 brate to the highest vertebrate by an admirable, sys- 

 tematic] tree of trunk, branches, and twigs; even, 

 shooting here and there all over the blackboard, and 

 ^nded by declaring the precepts of the evolution of 

 man from all this treey and twigy matter. Unfortu- 

 nately, however, man was made to appear at the ex- 

 tremity of one of these insignificant branchlets. As a 

 result during the evening of the same day, the figure 

 remaining upon the board during that time, some 

 mischievious person made, naturally enough as far as 

 simple appearances went, a few additional branchlets 

 to the limb of man with the words "man in 1900?" 



