The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-10-20
Prof. Huxley ON Evolution.

Prof. Huxley, the distingui shed Eng.
lish scientist has just delivered series
of lectures in New York ON "The Direct
Evidence of Evolution" The following
are the closing words of the last lecture
of the series
"When an inductive hypothesis is
demonstrated by facts in entire accord
ance with it, and such as might have
been reached by deductive processes, it
is firmly established; if the doctrine of
evolution has not been fully established
as firmly as and in the way that the Co
pernican system has been demonstrated
beyond the possibility of cavil, nothing
has ever been or ever can be proved.
The only escape is to say that all these
different forms were created separately
and at separate epochs, a belief which
can never be demonstrated and is not
supported by any other evidence or pre-
tended evidence. The time will come
when such endeavors to escape the con-
clusion will be looked upon as are the
views of those not yet wholly extinct
writer's who hold that fossils are no indi-
cations of animals, but either the sports
of nature or, as has been recently
gravely asserted, special creations to
test our faith. All evidence favors evo-
luton, and there is none against it. To
the uninformed it seems an insuperable
objection that geologists, astronomers,
and physicists say that not sufficient
time has elapsed since the earth grew
cool enough to support life for all these
changes of form. We look to the geolo-
gist and physicist for information in re-
gard to the time necessary for the pro-
duction of these forms, the existence of
which we absolutely know. Let them
set the time with that we have nothing
to do. There is no foundation for the
assertion that evolutioiists demand an
impossible time; the biologist has no
way to Judge of time he takes his facts
from the geologist, who tells how long it
took to lay the rocky deposits. If he
says 500, 900, 900 years, we suppose he
has good grounds for saying so, and so
long it took for.the development f; if he
says $4,000, 900 years, that was the time
in which evolution performed its work.
Suppose Sir William Thompson says
that life could not have existed at such
or such time; evolutionists will tell
him to discuss that question with the
geologists-we take what they say (; it
does not concern us.
CT have now," said Prof. Huxley,
-" reached the conclusion of my task.
Ny purpose has not been to enable the
unreading to leave this hall in condi-
ton to decide as to the validity or in
validity of evolution, but to put before
you the principles and facts for judging
that hypothesis, and to show you the
value of its evidence and its cogency.
To accomplish this end l have not hest
tated to take you as students through ar
guments which sometimes must have
lied your patience, or to infict upon
you details that cannot be avoided. /
rejoice to have done you the greatest
service in my power, if have convinced
you that SO great question is not to be
dealt with in rhetorical fourishes and
loose talk, but deserves the keenest at
tention of the trained intellect and OBJ
servation. When I began did not
think it necessary to form prologue as
a stranger, for / have met 80 many
friends in this country that to do so would
have been out of place"