AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



469 



" 1. The act of coming into life, of 

 being born." 



" That which is born; that which is 

 produced, whether animal or vegetable." 

 " 5. The act of bringing forth." 

 Now, on this high authority I affirm 

 that every living being that has an in- 

 dependent life, began that life by a 

 birth. Will Mr. Dadant deny ? I 

 further affirm that every bee that lives 

 has a separate birth from every other 

 living thing, and consequently, that 

 there are thousands of births for each 

 sexual union between drones and queens. 

 Will Mr. D. deny ? I therefore repeat, 

 that when Mr. Darwin says, " All verte- 

 brate animals, pair for each birth," he 

 is away off from the truth. 



Mr. D. seems to think that I do Mr. 

 Darwin injustice in calling some of his 

 statements "mistakes." Well, let us 

 see how much better Friend D. has done 

 for the honer of the great man. He says: 



" Darwin was not abee-keeper ; there- 

 fore, it is not astonishing that he did 

 know neither the parthenogenesis nor 

 the ways used by bees to build combs." 



And again : " When Darwin wrote 

 his book on the ' Origin of Species,' in 

 1859, the theory of Dzierzon, on the 

 parthenogenesis of bees, was yet in its 

 infancy, and was not yet accepted by all 

 bee-keepers ; so it is but natural that 

 Darwin did not understand it; for the 

 most learned men cannot be acquainted 

 with all kinds of knowledge." This is 

 just what I said — that Darwin wrote on 

 that of which he was ignorant. 

 "Thanks, awfully," Bro. D., for thus 

 corroborating my statements. And do 

 you still think it better " to be blindly 

 led by a great name," who makes such 

 blunders, than " to use one's brains and 

 eyes ?" 



Leaving my article, Friend D. plunges 

 into a defense of Darwinian evolution, 

 as though he thought it in imminent 

 danger of destruction. Whether this is 

 a subject for discussion in a bee-paper, 

 is for the editor to determine. But 

 having admitted it in a criticism of my 

 article, I ask space for a few remarks. 



Mr. Dadant says, "The ideas put 

 forth by Darwin on evolution, are now 

 admitted as true by all the savants of 

 Europe and America. They are so ra- 

 tional, so much sustained by recent dis- 

 coveries, that they cannot be any more 

 contested." 



The above statement indicates that 

 the writer has confined his reading on 

 this subject too much to one side. In 

 the first declaration he is contradicted by 

 the facts. Some of the most eminent 

 scientists of the day have not only not ' 



given in their adhesion to the Darwinian 

 hypothesis of evolution, but have op- 

 posed it, on scientific grounds, with all 

 their ability. Mr. Dadant, being a 

 Frenchman, ought to know that scien- 

 tists of his native country have been 

 very slow to indorse Darwin's theory of 

 evolution. I need name but one — A. 

 De Quatrefages, author of " The Human 

 Species," and one of the leading anthro- 

 pologists of the world, who has written 

 extensively against evolution. Rudolph 

 Virehow, of Germany, is one of the fore- 

 most pathologists and scientists of this 

 age, and has given long and patient 

 study to the claims of evolution, and the 

 proofs upon which it is supposed to rest; 

 and as his mature conclusion he declares 

 that "Evolution has no scientific basis 

 to rest upon." These men represent a 

 large number of names of less note in 

 Europe who share their views on this 

 subject. 



In America, I will mention only a few 

 of many who have not accepted Dar- 

 win's hypothesis. The late Louis Agas- 

 siz, the father of advanced science in 

 America, who spent the latter years of 

 his life combatting, with all the powers 

 of his giant intellect, the hypothesis of 

 evolution, which he regarded as the most 

 dangerous scientific heresy. 



Dr. Wilford Hall, of New York, has 

 written largely and ably against Dar- 

 winism. Prof. Dawson, of McGill Col- 

 lege, Canada, has been, from the first, 

 one of the stoutest and ablest antago- 

 nists of the evolution doctrine. These 

 leaders, whose reputation as eminent 

 scientists is world-wide, are followed by 

 many of respectable scientific attain- 

 ments. And yet we are told that the 

 doctrines of evolution " are now admit- 

 ted as true by all the savants of Europe 

 and America!" 



Again, we are told that these ideas 

 " are so rational, so much sustained by 

 recent discoveries, that they cannot be 

 any more contested." They can't? But 

 my friend, they are contested, and that, 

 as I have shown, by some of the ablest 

 scientists of the age. The fact is, Dar- 

 winism has not advanced beyond the 

 hypothetical stage yet. Demaillet, in 

 1748, taught that animals by changing 

 their habitations and environments, 

 changed their natures and instincts. At 

 the beginning of this century, Lamark 

 taught that both the instincts and or- 

 gans of animals are modified by the 

 habits of the animal. Later came the 

 author of the "Vestiges of Creation," 

 with the theory that a prolonged gesta- 

 tion would carry an animal forward to a 

 higher sphere than it would otherwise 



