8 Disadvantages of the Upright Position,  {January, 
_ in grand generalizations. The hydro-dynamics of animal life 
would alone furnish a theme for thousands of investigators. At 
present the world goes on in its blindness, apparently satisfied 
that everything is all right because it exists at all, ignorant cf the 
evil consequences of apparently beneficent peculiarities, vaunting 
man’s erectness and its advantages, while ignoring the disadvan- 
tages. The observation that the lower the animal the more pro- 
lific, would eventuate the belief that the higher the animal the 
more difficulties encompass his development and propagation, 
and the cranio-pelvic incompatibility alone may settle the Malthu- 
sian doctrine effectually for the higher races of men through their 
extinction, 
Foot-NoTE.—This article has a little history of its own, the nature of which shall 
. be its excuse for publication i 
Some members of the Chicago University faculty asked me, last year, if I would 
accept the chair of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in that institution. I re- 
plied that I would, but must be allowed to teach what I considered to be the truth, 
and that evolution was the only sensible basis for such instruction. The president of 
the faculty, a Baptist minister, was to call upon me, I was told, upon a certain day to ~ 
arrange concerning salary and minor details. April 18, 1882, by invitation, I lec- 
tured before the Chicago University Club on the Disadvantages of the Upright Posi- 
tion. The subject and its treatment proved too Darwinistic, as a foretaste of my 
teachings, and the president did not call to see me. Since then Professor E. S. Bas- 
tin, who had ably filled all the scientific chairs in the university, was found to be 
2 teaching strict truth, to which no objection was raised, but the effects of such teach- 
ing upon the minds of the students was found to interfere with their docile gulping 
of all the antiquated rubbish dealt out from other chairs, A “ safe” teacher was 
wanted, one who could use the text-books of last century’s science. Professor Bas- 2 
tin resi 
Another “ university ” hereabouts made the substitution of Egyptian mythology for 
botany optional in the classical course, 
- These tottering schools do not seem to have asked themselves why a half million : 
people fail to support them, nor to be aware that Eastern colleges are filled with — 
Western youth, who might as well be taught nearer their homes the branches they _ 
can learn only in other States. 
_. The Academy of Sciences in this city 
great 
used. The last lecture I attended there was by a reverend gentleman whose thesis 
was the impossibility of the river Nile being more than 6000 years old. He based — 
his calculations upon ten years’ observations of the alluvial deposit at the mouth of © 
a small creek in this State. Darwinism mentioned within these precincts has some- — 
thing of the effect of the red rag shown to the bull, though no objection has been — 
raised against the delivery of evolutionary lectures. 
- The few scientific men Chicago has originated are drifting away from the place. : 
Gigantic barter occupies the time and attention of the people exclusively. It will 
hee y has never recovered from the disaster of th? : 
5 fire. The building has been forfeited through debts; large and valuable collec- 
Pons are being donated to it by Eastern institutions, but remain boxed up and un- 
a i ee ee 
R 
"ear 
PS 
