Saturday press. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885, 1881-12-10


1t potentially includes all forms of life
To illustrate: We know that certait
grabs are transformed into butterflies, bu
If the possibility of all life is in every life
how shall we deny that all grubs ma,
change TO butterflies ? When one crushe
scorpion, he thinks he knows what he i
killing. but mayhap he has destroyed {
possible man Moreover, such life having
no law to itself but that of environment
selection and survival. ETC., may be retro.
gressive as well as progressive.
Some unfortunate father, in an I'M.
favorable environment, may have a son
which is no man, but (the missing link not
yet found) monkey, like his grandfather
in the limo Of development. a pair, in this
down.rrude order, may produce dolphin,
/ like the great grandfather. The evolution.
ist may not deny the possibility of such n
result, if there be no fixed nature in animal
life, if environment be the principal life
/ determining force. Without nature all
animals are essentially alike, and no fiuite
/ intelligence can predict what form of life
may arise in the future from the now exis-
| ting animals. Shall the evolutionist then
perforcs admit n nature? but that would
be fatal to his system. He may prefer to
admit, not n nature exactly, but law of
selfdeyelopmcnt controlling all life and
leading upward by successive steps. But
if there be such law, how does it happen
that there have been persistent forms of
life running through all the geologic
period Gan example is given in 81
Why have they not developed? Especial.
ly why has not man. reaching far back in.
{ a. r Il
produced smother and higher form of man.
hoodf Supposed winged man, able to
accomplish with ease what we so ineffectu.
ally attempt with our clumsy balloons, or
better still, man with superior vital force
better able to resist disease, ard the laws
of chemical decomposition. (The advent
of such an one would be hailed rs n con.
vincing proof of evolntion.) Hence in the
lack of examples of different and higher
type of manhood under the law of self.de.
velopment, or of degraded men in the alb
sence of fixed nature and in the plentiful
lack of missing links" between every
| marked grade of animals, which links on
either of the evolutionary views ought to
be found, and seeing also that some of the
| ancient forms still survive, we perceive
that the principle in question entirely fails
to coincide with facts, and rs philosophy.
cal scheme, still needs vnst amount of
prog, eSsire development.
But there is another objection to evou-
ton on philosophical grounds. stronger than
that delivered to the merely animal de-
/ velopmeut of man from monnd and n
monkey. 1t Is this: If man possess not
only an animal body, but rational and
immortal spirit, how can the latter be de-
veloped out of the irrational and pershinc
money? There are no degrees between the
mortal and immortal, the rational and
accountable, and the brutal and irrespon-
sible. BY the whole breadth of the eternity
to come is the brute that perishes separated
from the spirit that ascends to its Maker,
and the unending life of the future There
can be no partial Immortality, no halfway
responsibility. Such development is ir-
rational and chimerica. This point and
several of the facts used in this paper are
taken in substance, from Hugh Miler's adj
mirable work, Footprints of the Creator
3. CONTRARY TO ESTABLISHED FACTS IN GEOLOGY.
If tho evolutionary theory be true, the
oldest fossils should be the most ele-
mentary, the least developed. Tire FOSSIL
ferrous rocks have an established order in
time, and are described in geology as more
or less ancient For example, the tertiary
are comparatively modern. Next older are
the carboniferous, then the red sandstone,
new and old, then the silurian, still lower
the cambrian. Below these are the azoic,
in which no fossil remains have vet been
found. There are certain facts in the
yDote nj ,rl, oh ~
assumption that the Oldest forms were the
lowest in the scale of being. Tho oldest
fossil FISH found in the old red sandstone,
the oldest system in Scotland, is the astero.
iop's, eeidconth, family ranking high
in cranial development, and of large bulk,
the bones Of some specimens indicating a
length of twenty feet. The Oldest tree
fossil known belongs to the pine family,
and is nearly allied to that superb aura.
carian, the Norfolk Island pine. The fossil
is that of trne cone bearing tree.
Among the sllurian molluscs the cephat
| opods are contemporaneous with the 6roch-
iopods, though Of much higher organi-
cation than the latter. Vertebrotes have
been found in the lowest fossiiferous strata
the cambrian. On the other hand, and
equally subversive to this theory, the Port
jackson shark, cearaciont. tho Oldest
vertebrate family known. still survives
OF this family the great Agassis says: at
sweeps across the entire geologic scale "
Such fact is conclusive against law of
progressive development. But perhaps the
evoIutionist will assert that develop.
ment in certain lines is at work
afresh, aud this vexatious shark is
modern product, and that the "proto-
plasmic monads " are still being "struck
ont Of albumen by electricity" And indeed
why not3 These pla,id cons of the earth's
history are surely more favorable for the
origination and development of life than
those ancient cons, when the "earth was
tempesied by earthquakes "and lurid over
vast areas with volcanic fires. Iic it so
But we repeat, surely now there should
come forth to view those intermediate
forms, which so strongly Graves, bat still,
40 cruelty lacks. Where are the wander.
ing doiphins with fms elongating into legs
now first forsakiug their marine habta, for
the un,ried landF A warm welcome awaits
tbs stranger and safe housing in many a
carefully kept museum. Barnum would