Arizona republican., 1891-01-25
EVOLUTION AND CREATION.
samuel P. Putnam's Lecture at the Opera
 House Last Evening.

samuel F. Putnam's Lecture at the Opera
 House Last Evening.
 Samuel P. Putnam lectured to a large audience at the Opera House last night upon Evolution and Creation" The eloquence of the speaker was displayed to good effect in the lecture, of which the following is synopsis:
 Only three theories are possible in regard to the life and history of the uni verse-that it has always been as it is today, or been created out of nothing, or evolved from previous forms of life. The evidence against the first theory is too overwhelming to permit its acceptance. It is then either the theory of creation or evolution. The question is to be de- ternned by evidence.
 As a matter of fact there is no eYi- | denCe in favor of creation. All the facts that point Tn any direction are for evo- | lutiOn. Evolution includes all life. Not only is the physical being of man evolved from over forms of life, but his ! intellectual aud moral. Mans reason Is like the reason ol all animals. It acts in more manifold relations, but is es- sentiaIly the same. The old distinction | between instinct and reason is obliter- ased. Instinct is crystalized reason, a | habit inherited from countless genera lions. All instinct originated in acts of | reasoning.
 Evolution changes the front of the universe. 1t changes all previous ideas of morality, of history, of the past and Of | tEe future Ot man.
 Morality is simply natural. It is l bounded upon our relations with one an other and the amity of life. 1t is the | morality of human brotherhood, not Oi l the will of God. Christianity IS a purely l natural religion and Is evolved from | older religions. There is nothing mirac- ulous about it. It has no new ideas and no new institutions. Evolution teaches that all religions nave the same origin, the feelings of awe, wonder and terror, with which the ulutored mind books upon the stupendOus energies Ol the unmeasurabe world in which we | live. Evolution does not reject Chris. tianity as Il whole, it analyses and SC. Iects whatever good there is in it. The | philosophy Oi evolution, as of free thought, is eclectic.
 The theory of creation logically re. suits in the terrible theology of Calvin. 1t is iOreordination and predestination according to the creeds of the church. Evolution maintains the freedom and moral power OI man. Man IS not like q | floating leaf on the stream of evolution. ,le Is part ol the stream Itsef--a living force. lis will, his intelligence contrib. ute to the final result. There is natural selection and, as Darwin calls it, arti- ticial selection, the selection of man. By this selection, by changing conditions and antecedents, man makes new eff. feet. lie can not change the law, but through the law he can make grander outcome. Man has made the horse oi today, the dog, the peach, the orange, the apple. Ii he can improve these forms of life, make them nobler and more beautiful, he can change and i'm. prove himself. He can make better man.
 Evolution gives the hope of boundless progression. If man has advanced SC wonderfully by natural growth, what can he not do in the centuries that are before him? He can attain higher heights of being. Bringing into play his own faculties he can unfold more magnificent destiny than has ever been dreamed of in the Bibles of the past.