The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-09-12
DARWINISNT DYING.


Jas. G. Southall pronounced an ad-
dress a short time ago at the Universi-
ty of Virginia, in which he refuted,
with singular force and clearness, argu-
ments designed to sustain the Darwin
ian theory. The gap between man and
the most advanced brute forms is still
unclosed and still messureless. How
ever palpable the gradual development
and progress of Simian types from the
lowest animal forms through the
ages of geology, the evidences of pro-
gresslve gradstion and evolution end
with the brute creation and man stands
apart wholly distinct from the rest of
living things. The missing apes are
still sought after In Central Africa and
Borneo, and it is even alleged by those
who insist that Darwin is right and
Moses wrong, that the peculiar
monkey, connecting the African and
animal kingdom, was destroyed when
the former continent, called Lemuria,
sunk in the Indian Ocean between AZ
rica and India.
But the chssm that separates man
from the gorilla has never been
bridged, and Stanley insists that Cen
tral Africa fails to supply the undis-
coverable missing link. There is, too,
a missing link and unbridged gulf be-
tween the reptllian forms and birds of
the secondary age and mammals of the
tertiary. The monkey, too, comes un-
hera!ded by any animal at all like him.
He had no proper predecessor. Mr..
Southall says there was no evolution
ary trumpet to sound his approach. In
view of these facts, and the chasms
separating forms of animal life at diff
ferent periods, the followers of Dar-
win have been driven to q new theory.
Perhaps Beecher suggested the terms,
but they call it "Paroxysmal Evo-
lution"-evolution by leaps. There
was grand leap, which Oar
win could not span, from the
plant. like protozosn to the huge crus-
tacean of msny-lensed eyes. There
was another paroxysmal leap, and
links were left out between the crusta-
ceans and sharks, and there is no link
between the fishes and frogs, and then
at the close of the glacial epoch, of
which we discover traces in the hill
sides about Austin, there was a tre-
mcndous leap from the ape-like organ
ism to that of man.
Gradual evolution is an ingenious
fable. Abrupt and tremendous changes
in the succession of geological life, the
writer quoted insists, are fatal to the
theory of ''gradual evolution" AS
the evidence stands to-day, man ap-
peared, even as the story is told in
Genesis, without other preparation
than preceding processes of creation
, which had no necessary connection
with the grand birth of Adam
: and Eye, typical of the human race.
1t is curious fact, to be considered
, in this connection, as violative OF the
. supposed law of development and pro-
gression, that the oldest skulls discov
. cred in America or in Europe are as re
markable fer large cerebral cavity al
| koH
Skulls found beneath floors of thicl
stalagmite in American and European
I caverns, and associated with the bone
of the rhinosceros and mastodon, are q
finely proportioned and of as marked
intellectual developments as skull
from the marble sarcophagi of Laure
. Hill, Mt. Auburn or Greenwood. Th
oldest was for ages the most perfec
> civilization. Before Moses wrote maj
was a great builder, even fashionin,
, works of statuary hardly transcendeC
in fidelity to nature by the products o
Phidias' or Michael Angeles art. Egyp
tians wrote, if Usher's chronology b
u trustworthy, even when Adam flourish
IS ed, and if we may infer from the colos
+ sal magnitude of temples and pyramid
and the grand designs they were erect
IL ed to subserve, the builders were infe
y rior in nothing to those who, in ou
o time, tunnel mountains and bridg
J. ''fathers of floods" Their books ma
% have been as numberless and learnin
l. as varied and inventions as wonderfu
l. as those of our time, but cataclysr
g befel the race when Alexandrian an
IL other libraries were destroyed, eve
.e as nights deepest shadows fell upo
er the annals of ancient Mexico whe
y christians, as Mohammedans ha
l. done in Egypt, destroyed all recorde
l. history of the Aztecs. There are n
n stone implements fouRd in EgyT
u or Babylon that are not discovered j
"a tombs bearing evidences of coevi
he progress as perfect as that whic
lc produced the highest achievement
E. of ancient oriental art and civilization
y Archaeology seeks in vain for traces {
+ man in the Est earlier or older tina
g the perfect works OF civilized man an
Is Darwinlsm loses it's acceptability whe
D proof is wanting of that progressive
J, ness which should distinguish alik
re man and animals. Egypt and Babylo
u are without psleolithic or first stor
y age.
Church-going people would
N pleased to know that Moses's poetr
q is still deemed q generally accurai
N statement Of the facts of creation
re Darwin's theories, almost unquestione
ID for time, do not Withstand scrutin.
re and while it is impossible, in newI
be paper article, to give facts or argumen
er in detail. philosophers and scientists Al
er By no means of one mind and Darwin
ID philosophy is steadily and, IS We b
10 lieve, fatally Undermined.
Id
ey WHEN the national banks say that
rs the government issue the gold and u
or banks the paper money, and that thl