SOME OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION THEORY. 585 



its close, leaving no descendants, while many of the smaller and apparently 

 less capable animals of the same period survived and passed on into the 

 succeeding age. 



Passing over the G-lacial period, which dispersed and destroyed most of 

 the animals of the Pliocene age, we hasten to consider those which appeared 

 upon the earth in the Post Glacial period and which now exist upon.it with 

 man. These were not known in the Pliocene, and some of them, which we 

 designate domestic animals, seem to be man's natural companions, and es- 

 sential to his existence upon the earth, even in the present condition of mild 

 temperature and freedom from the horrible monsters of past ages. 



Again we find facts, which, in view of the claims of the advocates of 

 Natural Selection, are surprising, and apparently tend to antagonize that 

 theory. We find the remains of many animals which, in the days of primi- 

 tive man, abounded and flourished, of which there are now no survivors 

 known; and these were not puny and insignificant animals either, but 

 numbered among them the woolly elej^hant, the woolly rhinoceros, the Hip- 

 popotamus major, the Irish elk and the cave bear, all of which were highly 

 organized animals, quite as capable of sustaining themselves in the struggle 

 for the "survival of the fittest" as the sheep and the ox, which have been, 

 since the advent of man, his valued coadjutors and allies. 



Having now arriyed at the point in the world's history when Man comes 

 upon the scene, we propose to spend a little time in indicating the main 

 weaknesses of the Evolution theory as regards his origin. To use the words 

 of another, "Let us now turn to the picture j^reseuted by the theor}^ of the 

 struggle for existence and derivation from the lower animals. It intro- 

 duces us first to an ape, akin, perhaps, to the modern orang or gorilla, but 

 unknown to us yet by any actual remains. This creature, after living for 

 an indefinite time in the rich forests of the Miocene and earlier Pliocene 

 periods, was at length subjected to the gradually increasing rigors of the 

 Glacial age. Its vegetable food and its leafy shelter failed, and it learned 

 to nestle among such litter as it could collect in dens and caves, and to seize 

 and devour such weaker animals as it could overtake and master. At the 

 same time its lower extremities, no longer used for climbing trees, but for 

 walking on the ground, gained in strength and size; its arms diminished 

 and, its development to maturity being delaj^ed by the intensity of the 

 struggle for existence, its brain enlarged; it became more cunning and sa- 

 gacious, and even learned to use weapons of wood and stone to destroy its 

 victims ; so it grew into a fierce and terrible creature, "neither beast nor 

 human," combining the habits of a bear and the agility of a monkey with 

 some glimmerings of the cunning and resources of a savage. 



When the Glacial period passed away our nameless Simian man, or man- 

 like ape, might naturally be supposed to revert to its original condition, and 

 to establish itself as of old in the new forests of the modern period. For 

 some unknown reason, however, perhaps because it had gone too far in the 

 path of improvement to be able to turn back, the reversion did not take 



