The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-01-13


Mr.. Conway, in his lecture last week in
New York City. said that the new year
shows us the fierce light of science beating
UPon man. Looking hack twenty-five
years, the great scientific question that then
sgitated the world was the antiquity of
man. Sir Charles Lyon was then in the
front, Darwin and Huxley young men wan.
dering about the face of the earth trying
to pick up few fa Is With what horror
was Sir Charles Lyon looked upon, how
wild he was considered to be, when he in
timated that men might have inhabited this
planet one hundred thousand years ago.
And yet before be did in what a different
light was Sir Charles looked upon. And
Mr.. Conway humOrously told of an inter-
view he bad with Sir Charles Lyon q few
months before be was laid In Westminster
Abbey, when he said: have become quite
conservative and the ministers have told
me they are quite willing to make bishop
of me-" Twenty five years ago the finding
of skulls and flint arrows filled the world
with dismay, the more so as they seemed to
prove unquestionably that the world had
been inhabited by a race of men at an ear
her date than certain religious people had
arbitrarily chosen to place them. There
was found 4 skull deep beneath a mound
which nobody could .ell was Of artificial or
natural formation. A great commotion
ensued, and when on careful examination it
was found that the teeth of the.skull had
been worn away apparently by the holding
of a clay pipe, reioicIngs were had in Chris
tian churches, because it established the
fact that that skull must have been anima-
ted with life at a later period thar the dis
coveiy of tobacco. But the proofs of mans
antiquity were not wanting. Mr.. Conway
here told of the Kent cavern, with its con-
elusive proof. There is in that cav
ern, he said, strata of stalagmitic
rock formed by the filtration of water
through the roof-a strata five feet deep,
and beneath this rock have been found flint
arrows. Two hundred and twenty-five years
ago, after the usual fashion of the Anglo
| Saxon, q man cut his name upon the top of
the rock in letters one-elghth of an inch
deep, and although the work of nature in
adding to the stone has necessarily gone on
since that date, this one-eighth of an inch
has not yet been filed up or obliterated.
Thus, to have formed the Ave feet of rock
beneath which the arrows were found a pc
riod of 1a0, 600 years was necessary. There
is nothing in the Bible, continued Mr.. Cen
way, to give mankind the impression that
the world has only existed 6000 years. An
old archbishop speculated and placed the
| beginning of the world on "a November
morning, 4002 years B. G. IL was igporance
that opposed Sir Charles Lyon as it has
been and is ignorance that opposes all the
| discoveries of science. The finding of fiat
arrows, too, was thought to initiate against
the Bible by showing that man was not
originally created in a civilized condition
whereas, there is not word in that book to
prove that man was not created savage. 1t
is john Milton who placed Adam and Eve
in the garden, conyersing in beautiful En-
glish. But even if it had been a step away
| from the statements of the Bible, MIR. Con-
way said, science must have triumphed
where men were not ignorant or blinded by
superstition, and this question of mans
antiquity. however little importance there
may have been in it itself, showed that the
mind of man was being trained to look at
| the truth.
The great field was struck ~ Darwin.
| ''Darwin Is himself an illustration of evolu-
ton, said Mr.. Conway, and in speaking
of HIM he spoke with great fondness, almost
reverence. Darwin" he said, .'has the
brow of Michael Angeles Moses. Although
we look upon evolution as a recent theory,
it is not. DR.. Darwin the elder was ridi-
culed thirty-fve years ago concerning it.
But the present Darwin probably conceived
the idea in all its details while studying
nature amid the gorgeous growth of South
America there he got the grand idea OF
unity in nature" Mr.. Emerson, said Mr..
Conway, in his new book so pregnant with
| wisdom, has said that science makes false
impressions upon thinkers by reason of its
isolation. And, said he, this is particular
ly true of evolution; isolation has made il
repulsive, though to many man it is now
p 10 cfr nf mr. fxr<a MAJ IA
have done most to remove the doctrine oi
evolution from this isolation, Mr.. Conway
said, are Huxley and Spencer. Huxley ha,
a genius for verifcatlon, and represents al
authority in science. He has shown by hi.
caution that he will not believe fact un
/ less it is based on the solid rock of truth
l"Why is it that science has an authority
that nothing else has ~ asked Mr.. Conway
digresslng for moment. ssIt is becaus,
science is steady growth of necessary OBJ
servation," and here, to illustrate the car,
the caution-the scrutiny with which sci
entists proceed after truth, he told an anec
dote of skull found by a scientific man deeI
IN the earth, beneath the bed of an ancien
stream long dried up. This skull wa
found, and the next day scientific men from
all quarters of Europe were on their way Il
the spot. Twelve of the greatest men il
1 Europe RhbutIcu dIOuhQ tD6 ubLle Dedp o
dried aud bleached bones, and for sever
days in Paris held q congress over it
Chemists analyz zed the bones and the eartl
around, and then the twelve savants wen
to the pit where the skull was found an,
for three days remained in it. Then from
!, collections and museums were gatheret
other skulls, thousands of dried bones
and comparison with each was inst
tuted. THUS it is," said the lee
turer, ''that science seeks for truth; thu
it is that she heaps up knowledge
suspects and criticises until the result
placed beyond all possible criticism" Mr.
Conway, TO illustrate the same point, Of th'
indefatigable manner in which scientist
labor, told narrative of John Evans, Col
Lane Fox, DR.. Pntchard and Prof. Pres
ton, who studied for three years the rud
art of the savage that they might learn tn
precise way in which he manufactured hi
, flint arrows, and be able thus to tell tn
! genuine from the spurious among the arti
cles purporting to be unearthed and brough
to them by French workmen.
While Huxley has been in England th
genius for verifcation and criticism of eve
luton, spencer, Mr. Conway says, has bee
the philosopher Of combination. Eve
more tenderly than Of Huxley Mr.. Conwa
Spoke of Herbert Spencer. The quiet
farmer-like man." be called him, s'who,
he had not been distinguished as philosc
pher, would have been known as a scien
tiic investigator on the side of truth an
virtue He has the wonderful pever of ps
J tient combination, so rare in the world, no
exceeded by Bacon" Mr.. Conway ais
spoke of the patient and iaborious way Il
. which Spencer went 10 any degree of troubI
to obtain anaiogies. He told characteristi
anecdotes of the philosopher. He was wit
him one day on q fishing excursion (Spen
. Ger, according to Mr.. Conway, is very fonl
|, Of that pasiime), and they noticed strin,
of boys running BY the side Of cam
boat. in hope Of pennies from men on th
. boat. After time tae smaller boys tire
and dropped out of the chase, and at one
Nh. Spencer noticed the Survival Of III
fttest." Through Huxley and Spencer "
have seen, said Mr.. Conway, the d0ctrin
NJ rvn1utiou rndaarnad frgssr1 fh.e ;sr,r.fi<,