Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-06-01
The Man from. Monkey Theory.

The Man from. Monkey Theory.
If. in short, in its general application,
Mr.. Darwin's hypothesis is utterly unsup-
ported by observed facts, it is still more
destitute of such support in its application
to man. Mr.. Darwin admits two things
first. that the difference is immense be-
tween the highest monkey and the lowest
savage; and, secondly, that this great
break in the organic chain cannot be
bridged over by any extinct or living spe
cies," or, as he again expresses it, that
/" the connecting links between man and
some lower form have not hitherto been
discovered" No monkey has been dis
covered which is even comparable with
man; no race of savages, however de
graded, can be regarded as on level with
monkeys. If Mr.. Darwins hypothesis
were true, it is almost incredible that no
evidence should be produced of the exist
ence of apelike creatures closely allied to
man, and showing tendency to further
development. On the other hand, we
have the undoubted and recorded expert
during which many races of men have
been subjected to influences the most di-
versified and the most favorable to the
further development of their faculties.
After the lapse of that time, man remains
rs distincly man as he was before, just as
all the animals with which he is acquainted
have preserved their specific characterls-
tics. It is more than questionable whether
his faculties have in any degree improved.
He has accumulated knowledge, he has
increased the instruments of his thought
and action, and his power has thus
been augmented. But there is some
reason to think, with Plato, that these nu-
merous aids have actually debilitated his
natural vigor of body and mind. At all
events it is in glaring contrast with Mr..
Darwin's theory on continuous develop
ment to observe that the earliest known
examples of mans most essential charac-
teristics exhibit his faculties in the great
est proportions ever attained. No poetry
surpasses Homer; no religious sentiment
is more sublime than that in the Book OF
Genesis; no art is more perfect than that
of Greece; no specimens of the human
form are more beautiful than the models
which Greek sculptors have preserved for
us. History is a continuous refutation OF
the theory that faculties are gradually
called into existence by circumstances.
On the contrary, they seem to start fully
formed from the brain of man, and to
work out their inherent power for the
modification of circumstances. Race after
race appears on the scene-the Egyptian
the Jew, the Greek, the Roman, the Ger
man, each with some special endowment
working, as it were, in its blood with in
exhaustable vigor. The endowment is
applied in various ways, and its farms are
multiplied; but it seems to lose, rather
than to gain, in fulness and fervency by
the lapse of time and the course of eX-
perience. The real problem of life lies IN
that mysterious fertility, at once so con-
slant and SO valuable, by which the same
nature is constantly reproduced, but by
which, from time to time, germs of new
energy seem developed. The solution of
this problem is to be sought, not in DIR.
Darwin's facile method of observing SUI
perficial resemblances, but the difficult
task of penetrating into hidden differences.
1t isl a problem which will be solved,
at all, not by romances in human ard
natural history, but by minute investiga
tions with the microscope and in the
laboratory.
We wish we could think that these spec
ulations were as innocuous as they are un
practical and unscientiic, but it is toe
probable that if unchecked they NIGH
exert a very mischievous influence. We
abstain from noticing their bearings on re
ligious thought, although it is hard to set
how, on Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, it il
possible to abscribe to man any other i'm
mortality, or any other spiritual existence
than that possessed by the brutes. Blu
apart from these considerations, if sucl
views as he advances on the nature of th'
moral sense were generally accepted,
seems evident that morality would lose al
elements of stable authority, and the
lever fixed marks" around which tn,
tempests of human passion now break
themselves, would cease to exert theil
guiding and controlling influence. Mr.
Darwin is careful to observe that he dOel
not wish to "maintain that every strictly
social animal, if its intellectual and socia
faculties were to become as active and al
highly developed as man, would acquire
exactly the same moral sense as ours" L
this be the case. why should not existing
moral sense be deemed a permanent stand
ard? If, for instance" says Mr.. Darwin
"to take an extreme case, men were
reared under precisely the same conditions
as hive bees, there can scarcely be a doub
that our unmarried females would, like tn,
worker bees, think it a sacred duty to xii
their brothers, and mothers would striv
to kill their fertile daughters, and III
one would think of interfering
What is this but to place ever,
barrier of moral obligation at the mere,
of the conditions of life?" Men, unfor
tunately, have the power of acting no
according to what is their ultimate socia
interest, but according to their ideas of il
and if the doctrine could be impressed o.
them that right and wrong have no othe
meaning than the pursuit or the neglect Q
that ultimate interest, conscience woul
cease to be a check upon the widest, OF
as Mr.. Darwin's own illustration allow
us to add, the most murderous revolutions
At a moment when every artificial princ
pie OF authority seems undermined, w
have no other guarantee for the order an
peace of life except in the eternal author
ity of those elementary principles of dut
which are Independent of all times and a.
circumstances. There is much reason t
fear that loose philosophy, stimulated b
an irrational religion, has done not littl
to weaken the force of these principles i
France, and that this is, at all events, ON
potent element in the disorganization {
French society. A man incurs gray
responsibility who, with the authority {
well-earned reputation, advances at sue
time the disintegrating speculations Q
this book. He ought to be capable of SUP
porting them by the most conclusive ev
dence of facts To put them forward O
such incomplete evidence, such cursor
investigation, such hypothetical argument
as we have exposed, is more than unscier
tific-it is reckless.-LoadO7s Times.
The Back Seat in tie Cars.
THE exigencies of spring milliner
obliged our friend Polly to take trip t
Springfield the other day. Somewhe1
up north freight train had run off tn
track, or hand car been inopportunel