Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-12-20
SALISBURY on DARWINISM.
His Address to the British Associa
ton for the Advancement of Science.

HIS Address to the British ASSOcia
ton for the Advancement of Science.
Darwin himself believed that al
animals were descended from "at
most four or five progenitors, add
ing that there was grandeur in the
view that life had been originally
breathed by the Creator into a few
forms or one" Some of his more de-
voted followers, like Prof Haeckel
were prepared to go a step farther and
to contemplate a crystal as the prob,
able ancestor of the whole fauna and
flora of this planet. To this extent
the DarWinian theory has not effected
the conquest of scientific opinion; and
still less is there any unanimity in the
acceptance of natural selection as the
sole or even the main agent of what
ever notifications may have led up to
the existing forms of life The deep
est obScurity still hangs over the
origin of the infinite variety of life
Two of the strongest objections to the
DarWinian explanation appear still to
retain all their force. | think Lord
Kelvin was the first to point out that
the amount of time required by the
advocates of the theory for working
out the process they had imagined
could not be conceded without as
Stunning the existence of a totally diff
ferent set of natural laws from those
with which we are acquainted. His
view was not only Sed on profound
mechanical reasoning. but it was so
plain that any laymar could compre-
bend it,
Setting aside arguments deduced
from the resistance of the tides,
which may be taken to transcend the
lay understanding, his argument from
the refrigeration of the earth requires
little science to apprehend it. Every
body knows that hot things cool, and
that according to their substance they
take more or less time in cooling. 1t
is evident from the increase of heat
as we descend into the earth that the
earth is cooling, and we know by eX-
pertinent, within certain wide limits,
the rate at which it's substances, the
matters of which it is constituted, are
found to cool. 1t follows that we can
approximately calculate how hot it
was so many million years ago. But
if at any time it was hotter at the
surface by so degrees Fahrenheit that
it is now, life would have been i'm
possible upon the planet, and there
~,
fix a date before which organic life
on earth cannot have existed. Basing
himself on these considerations, Lord
Kelvin limited the period of organic
life upon the earth to 1OO,0O0,OOO
years, and Prof. TAFT, in a still more
10. But on the other side of the ac-
count stand the claims of biologists
and biologists. They have reveled in
the prodigality of the ciphers which
they put at the end of the earth's
hypothetical life. Long cribbed and
cabined within the narrow bounds of
the popular chronology, they have eX-
ulted Wantonly in their new freedom.
They have laviShed their millions of
years with the open hand of prodi-
gal heir indemnifying himself by pres
ent extravaganza for the enforced self
denial of his youth.
But it cannot be gainsaid that their
theories require at least all this elbow
room. If we think of that vast dis
lance over which Darwin conducts us
from the jelly-fsh lying on the pri-
meyal beach to man as we know him
now; if we reflect that the prOdigiOuS
change requisite to transform one into
the other is made up of a chain of
generations, each advancing by q min
ute variation from the form of it's
predecessor, and if we further reflect
that these successive changes are SO
minute that in the course of our his
tOrical periOd-say 5000 years-this
progressive variat ton has not advanc-
ed by single step perceptible to our
eyes, in respect to man or the animals
and plants with which man is famil-
lar, we shall admit that for a chain
Of change so vast, of which the small
est link is longer than our recorded
history, the biologists are making no
eXtravagant claim when they demand
at least many hundred million years
for the accomplishment Of the stu
pendOuS process. Of course, if the
mathematicianS are right. the biolO-
gists cannot have what they demand.
If, for the purposes Of their theory,
organic life must have existed on the
globe more than hundred million
years ago, it must, under the tempera-
ture then prevailing, have existed in
a state of vapor. The jelly-fish would
have been dissipated in steam long
before he had had a chance of dis
playing the advantageous variation
which was to make him the ancestor
of the human race. [ see, in the elO,
quent discourse of one of my most re-
cent and most distinguished predeces-
SOrS in this chair. Sir Archibald Gel
kie. that the controversy is still alive.
The mathematicianS sturdily adhere to
their figures, and the biologists are
quite sure the mathematicians must
have made a mistake l will not get
myself into the line of fire by inter
vening in such a controversy. But
until it is adjusted the laity may be
excused for returning a verdict of
mot proven" upon the wider issues
the Darwinian school has raised.
The other objection is best stated in
the words of an illustrious disciple
of Darwin, who has recently honored
this city by his presence refer to