578 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 589. 



The Neanderthal skull " was claimed by the 

 evolutionists as from two to three hundred 

 thousand years old. Dr. Meyer, of Bonn, 

 examined the evidence, and found it to be the 

 skull of a Cossack killed in 1814." 



Chapter V. shows Evolution Unscientific 

 and Unphilosophical. Chapter VI. contrasts 

 Evolution and the Bible, and the last chapter, 

 VII., considers The Spiritual Effect of Evo- 

 lution, 



In this last chapter evolution is accused of 

 many misdeeds : 



It is, indeed, a fact that many young men have 

 started with high purpose to prepare for the min- 

 istry and even for foreign missions, and have, 

 after adopting modern theories, abandoned their 

 purpose. * * * This apparent increase of faith 

 [sometimes brought about by the adoption of evo- 

 lution] simply prepares the way for its utter 

 ruin. Instead of looking for a regeneration, a 

 revolution of the inner state, the believer in evolu- 

 tion necessarily looks for a change from educa- 

 tion or other form of development. It is, there- 

 fore, worse than unbelief.^ It is antagonism. It 

 is enmity! Once committed to this theory, there 

 is no extreme the person may not reach. When 

 openly advocated and taught, it is useless to seek 

 revivals among those so taught. 



As a consequence of all this we have the 

 lamentable fact: 



Education received in the United States over 

 $200,000,000 in gifts during the last few years, 

 to say nothing of the many-fold more received 

 from incomes and public funds. * * * Whether 

 this is the final form of unbelief is difficult to say. 



' For the benefit of the Rev. Patterson attention 

 should probably be called to the fact that he is 

 rather hard on St. Augustine and other church 

 fathers who interpreted the story of creation in 

 Genesis to mean the planting of the seed of crea- 

 tion, not the actual special creation of species, re- 

 jecting " Special Creation in favor of a doctrine 

 which, without any violence to language, we may 

 call a theory of evolution." Furthermore, that 

 Patterson's method of interpreting the story of 

 creation was introduced into the church by the 

 Spanish Jesuit Saurez near the middle of the 

 16th century. Fortunately the followers of Suarez 

 who " suspect the study of nature as if God were 

 a hypocrite and did one thing in his work and 

 said another in his Word" are growing fewer in 

 number. 



* * * It bears the marks of anti-christianity the 

 apostle speaks of. * * * All satanic methods be- 

 fore this have been crude and coarse compared 

 with this last invention. It is the most subtle 

 and sweeping of all evil methods to ensnare the 

 mind of man. 



It certainly must be, for it has captured 

 Patterson himself. He is evidently not con- 

 scious of the fact, and he would no doubt 

 repudiate the accusation in appropriate Eng- 

 lish. We will, therefore, permit him to again 

 speak for himself. The italics are mine. 

 Patterson does not realize that the trend of 

 evolution may be downward as well as up- 

 ward and that specialization frequently goes 

 with the reduction of parts. 



(P. 47) : Bearing in mind that this conclusion 

 [the descent of Hippus from Eohippus] is pure 

 assumption, and only inference at best, let us re- 

 mark that it violates the primal law of evolution 

 laid down by Spencer, that of evolution from the 

 simple to the complex. It should have shown 

 first the one-toed horse, then his development into 

 a two-toed animal, and so on up to a horse having 

 five toes. This would be evolution. As it is, we 

 see the opposite of evolution, degradation, which 

 often occurs in nature * * * . 



This notion that degeneration is not evolu- 

 tion is also brought out in connection with 

 the air-bladder of fishes, and Cope is quoted 

 against evolution : ' The retrogradation in na- 

 ture is as well or nearly as well established as 

 evolution ' and (p. 53) : 



The wild varieties of plants and animals are 

 far inferior to the cultivated kinds. The older 

 species are far superior to the present. The saber- 

 toothed tiger is far superior to the present animal. 



* * * Progress is not seen to be upward in the 

 flowers. So also parasitism is degeneration both 

 in plants and animals. (P. 81) : The late find 

 of skeletons at Croatia, Austria, is heralded as the 

 discovery of a connecting link. But these are 

 skeletons of men and not of brutes. They are 

 degraded men and nothing is better known than 

 the possibility of degeneracy in man. (P. 89) : 

 We have seen that modern man has not developed 

 in brain capacity above prehistoric man. It is- 

 also true that he has not developed physically. 



* * * Indeed, we have degenerated in many re- 

 spects. We have almost lost the sense of smell 

 as compared with savage peoples or even animals. 

 Our teeth are certainly not improving. If we are 



