January 9, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



65 



of the title-page of this text-book for secondary 

 schools bears the imprint, "Nihil ohstat," 

 followed by the signature of the " censor 

 designatus " and the imprimatur of the bishop 

 administrator of Quebec?] — the infallible 

 authority of the Church has made no definite 

 determination as to the date when God created 

 man, nor, by consequence, when man com- 

 menced to exist upon earth. There is a chron- 

 ology in the Holy Books written under the 

 inspiration of God, but in addition to the fact 

 that it must be admitted that in the work of 

 the ancient copyists extending over long peri- 

 ods of time the figures of this Biblical chronol- 

 ogy may have been considerably altered, we 

 may believe also that the sacred writer has not 

 pretended to any completeness of genealogy of 

 the patriarchs. Thus from the evidence of 

 Revelation there is no absolute statement to 

 be made relative to the existence of man on 

 the earth; moreover, this is a question that 

 interests neither dogma nor morals." 



In two succeeding paragraphs the teacher 

 states that geological evidence shows that man 

 did not exist in the Tertiary epoch. The 

 geological indications are that the creation of 

 man dates from the end of the first period of 

 the Quaternary. " One may add that there is 

 to-day a tendency to believe that the human 

 species has existed for 9,000 or 10,000 years; 

 but this is only an opinion more or less prob- 

 able that each is free to accept or reject for 

 himself." 



The second part of the chapter takes up. as 

 I have already indicated, the subject of evolu- 

 tion. It begins with a recognition and demon- 

 stration of the unusually favorable condition 

 of the infants of Quebec as regards science. 



" With us," writes the good Abbe, " the little 

 child when it has well learned its catechism is 

 sure of the solution of the most grave problems 

 which can disturb the human mind; it is in 

 possession of the truth on the most important 

 of questions. It knows, for example, the exist- 

 ence of God, that is to say the existence of the 

 eternal Being whose perfectness and power 

 are infinite. It knows that God has created, 

 that is to say produced by an act of His will, 

 the whole visible and invisible universe ; and 



as regards our earth, it knows that God has 

 created all the kinds, mineral, vegetable and 

 animal that are found on it. The science of 

 this little child is then already immense, and 

 it is certain." 



In painful contrast to this, the teacher finds 

 that " in other lands there are unfortunately 

 men who pass for savants, who ignore or refuse 

 to admit and even combat these truths which 

 rest not alone upon revealed religion, but also 

 upon philosophy and upon the natural sciences 

 where they are impartially questioned and legi- 

 timately understood. These men attribute all 

 the development of the world, organic and 

 inorganic, solely to the forces of nature, and 

 they do this either to eliminate any necessity 

 of intervention in this development by God or 

 to discredit the Church which He has estab- 

 lished." However, our author admits in a 

 footnote^ that not all evolutionists have such 

 perfidious intentions, these others being en- 

 gaged in following the chorus-masters of evo- 

 lution simply by their lack of scientific knowl- 

 edge and capacity for reflection, or because 

 they wish to be believed to be in the scientific 

 swim, a la mode. 



M. Huard then proceeds to a brief setting 

 forth of the actual hypothesis — the absurd 

 hypothesis — of transformism, and of the trivial 

 and thoroughly exploded alleged factors of this 

 evolution : namely, natural selection, the influ- 

 ence of the use of organs, and the influence of 

 the environment. " It is necessary to add that 

 these famous principles of the evolutional 

 hypothesis have no longer many partisans 

 to-day, because the actual facts have proved 

 their unreality. It is well, however, to know 

 them at least by name, because of the historic 

 interest which still attaches to them." 



M. Huard then offers a series of scientific 

 criticisms of evolution which are sufficient in 

 themselves to make untenable any belief in it, 

 without making appeal at all to those other 



1 " n ne manque pas, assur^ment, d 'evolution- 

 nistes qui n'ont pas ces intentions perfides, et 

 qui ne se sont engages El la suite des coryphees 

 du transformisme que par defaut de science ou de 

 reflexion, ou pour suivre ce qu'ils croient etre le 

 courant scientifique du jour." 



