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hose old writers, and more contradictory to their own theories. We are 
now told that, step by step, evolution has gone on producing developments 
that have led up to the noblest animal, and yet they say that this noble 
creature is still imperfect in details which anatomists understand, and which 
I will not endeavour to explain ; yet they claim for their own generation a 
wonderfully sudden development of intellectual power. I quite agree with 
the passage in which the lecturer says, speaking of God’s creation of man : “A 
noble creature this ! an origin which indicates both a divine ancestry and a 
glorious destiny.” I will not quote the concluding paragraph ; but I have here, 
in my hand, a book nearly a century and a half old — a book unbiassed by any 
of our Western theories — in which it will be seen that the people of the East 
claim for themselves a noble origin, for they refer to their ancient records, 
and, throwing overboard Buddhism and superstition, they claim to go back to 
the faith of their fathers, who tell them “ you are of a divine ancestry, worthy 
of a noble and an intellectual race.” I think, therefore, that when we find 
quasi-scientific writers tackling us upon our creed as Christians, we have 
a right to ask, is it not fair that we should take them to these non-Christian 
sources, and there meet them with their own weapons ? If our scientists will 
only go to the East, and inquire into these things, they will learn something 
that may help to prevent their putting forward facts in a manner which simply 
misleads our young people, who are nowadays going so far astray, that I 
regret to say, after having passed part of my life in Eastern and non-Christian 
countries, I feel almost ashamed of my own countrymen, and the insincerity 
of their belief. 
Mr. T. K. Callard, F.G.S. I think that Mr. Hassell, in his very able 
paper, has succeeded in showing that evolution, as biuglit by Dr. Haeckel, is 
not only at present unproved, but is not very likely to be proved in the 
future. It strikes me that the method Dr. Haeckel adopts of adding 
assumption to assumption, where there is no evidence to guide him, is most 
unscientific. On the second page of the paper we are told that Dr. Haeckel 
says : — “ There is no doubt that man is descended from an extinct mammalian 
form, which, if we could see, we should certainly class with the apes.” “ There 
is no doubt,” says Dr. Haeckel ; but why does he say there is no doubt ? 
Dr. Virchow, a man well known as a naturalist, says in connexion with this 
question of evolution, — “ We must really acknowledge that there is a complete 
absence of any fossil type of a lower stage, in the development of man” ; and 
Professor Boyd Dawkins says of the miocene and pliocene apes : — There is 
no tendency in them to assume human characters.” And yet, in the face of 
all this, Dr. Haeckel says : — “ There is no doubt ! ” Then Dr. Haeckel goes 
on to say : — “ It is equally certain that the primitive ape is in turn descended 
from an unknown semi-ape, and the latter from an extinct pouched 
animal.” There I agree with him — it is equally certain ” for there is no 
certainty in either statement. I will now refer you to page 257, ‘‘ step 19,” 
where Dr. Haeckel is quoted as having stated that : — “ There do not exict 
direct human ancestors among the anthropoids of the present day, but they 
