Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1871-06-29
Man and Monkey.

IL
profound a sensation as that which fol-
lows Mr.. Darwin's descent of Man."
The author is one of the most learned
and careful students of natural history,
and his high position in the realm of
science gives no little authority to what
he has to say ON a scientific question.
When, therefore, Mr.. Darwin bravely
intimates his belief that man is only a
ape-that the human family is
nothing more than a growth from the
lowest forms of animal life-it is natural
1t involves much more than at first ap-
pears on its face; it involves all present
human interests and human destiny
religion, the world to come, eternity
and moral responsibility. This age
calls itself scientific, and, for that rea-
son, is disposed to accept as true, every
elaborate scientific hypothesis that it
does not understand and can not dis
prove, simply because it is regarded as
proof of prejudice not to accept it.
But the tragic scenes recently enacted
in France-the legitimate expression of
that irreverent and materialistic litera-
ture which that country has given to The
world within the last half century, warns
us to look carefully at the books we
write, print and read, and to the moral
and scientific theories we accept. Ma
terialism in France has produced har-
vest of blood and fire; and materialism
that scouts all moral accountability and
all hereafter, may produce the same har-
vest, elsewhere.
The difference between a monkey and
a man is too vast for even Mr.. Darwin to
skip over, and it is strange, if his theory
be true, that no connecting link between
them has been discovered, either living
or extinct. On the contrary, we have
four thousand years of history to prove
that there is no such link-that man is
the self-same animal now that he was in
the days of Abraham. 1t is more than
questionable whether his faculties have
in any degree improved. He has ac-
cumulated knowledge, he has increased
the instruments of his thought and ac-
ton, and his power has thus been aug
mented. But there is some reason to
think, with Plato, that these numerous
aids have actually debilitated his natural
vigor of body and mind. At all events,
it is in glaring contrast with Mr.. Dar-
wins theory on continuous development
to observe that the ealiest known exam
piles of mans most essential characters
tics exhibit his faculties in the greatest
proportion 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. To argue, therefore, that ages
hence, the present ape will be s'develop-
ed" and improved into a human being,
and the present human being to higher
and more exalted person, is pushing
science to very unscientific and absurd
lengths.
But this is not the worst of 1T. If it
were only q matter of science it would
matter little whether people accepted
Mr.. Darwin's theory or not; but, as we
said before, it is a question of nearly
everything else. If human beings are
a development of low animal life, then
such things as right and wrong, truth
and error, moral obligation, faith, re-
ligion, and Immortality are myths; and
human destiny is, ''LeJ us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die." What is to be-
come of the world when material theo-
ries of life and origin shall have
eliminated moral truth and religion
from the world? If such teachers as
Darwin succeed in making men believe
they are mere brutes, will they not act
as brutes? He intimates that what we
call moral laws are not steadfast princi-
plies, but mere notions developed by con-
ditions, and changing with those condi-
case, men were reared under precisely
the same conditions as hive-bees, there
can scarcely be a doubt that our unmar-
ried females would, like the worker bees,
think it sacred duty to kill their broth
ers, and mothers would strive to kill
their fertile daughters, and no one would
think of interfering"
This would place every established
principle of right and wrong at the
- g I
make it right for man to do just what
they might please to do. Such doc
trine, once accepted and acted on, would
fill the world with confusion and horror.
At moment when every artificial prin-
ciple of authority seems undermined, we
have no other guarantee for the order
and peace of life except in the eternal
authority of those elementary principles
of duty which are independent of times
and all circumstances. There is much
reason to fear that loose philosophy,
stimulated by an irrational religion, has
done not little to weaken the force of
these principles in France, and that this
is, at all events, one potent element in
the disorginization of French society. A
man incurs a grave responsibility who,
with the authority of a well-earned repu-
tatiOn, advances at such time the disin-
tegrating speculations of this book. He
ought to be capable of supporting them
by the most conclusive evidence of facts,
or he should leave his books unpublished
and unwritten.-jSt. Louis Commercial
Gazette.
The brain of the murderer Ruloff
weighed fifty-nine ounces, which is nine
or ten ounces more than the average
weight of the brain, which is about fifty
ounces. The heaviest brain ever weighed
was that of Cuvier, the French natural
ist, which is given by some authorities at
siXty-four ounces. The brain of Daniel
Webster-partly estimated, on account
of portion being destroyed by disease
weighed siXty-four ounces. The brain
ln,,1 oscrl,