The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-02-06


suage in Reviewing the Mosaic and Oar
winian Theories, But the Great Question
Still Floats Down the shores of Tune
"How Bout You and Whence Came
Ye?"-EyoIutIon is Ably Combatted.
The Wichita Scientific association ar,
l1nprovine the present dull season by dis
7ussinsc some deep questions. The meet.
ing last night was d most interesting
ene. Mr.. Hubert Child read a paper II
opposition to the idea of evolution, and
an Eagle reporter secured some of the
salient points in subsequent interview
Mr.. Child said:
/ am very well aware that it is the
''fad" TO be well up in evolution, 20 be
able TO talk glibly of national selec-
lion"-and the survival OF the fittest-
and to point with look of bottled ur
wisdom) to the unbroken vertibraical
chain that connects man with his minute
progenitor-Mr. ProtoplaZm.
Mr.. Charles Darwin. for whom l have
most profound respect, has tried to rec
oncile us to the idea that we originally
away back yonder in the nebulosity OF
things evoluted or sprang from min
ute, pulsating chunk Of jelly.
Just for moment try and realize the
long. long, weary road we have travel
ed-boring our way, so to speak. through
HE conditions of animal hfe--sometimes
looking perhaps rather scaly, no doubt.
We have ploughed our way through the
double distilled antedeluvian deeps-and
then in evolutionary feathers we are
winging our flight through the azure
blue, over the unthought of possibilities
Of the future.
Juse look at our trail-naarked by our
clany cast-off belongings! How prodiga!
we have been, picking up 2 tail here
and wing yonder, and then, like the
unthInking side, we throw them, one by
one, away. Our pathway, in the Ian
guage of a politically shelyed orator, is
strewn with glittering generalities.
But still onward, emerging from and
with some Of the minute accretioas of
the past, here we are, a tWo-legged, con-
ceiteo animal.
The kindliest feelings, however, should
permeate every fibre of our being for
I'll animal life on the trail upward.
Just think that in front Of you stand
Moses and Darwin, back TO back-Noses
looking east, Darwin west.
Now the people of Moses time looked
up 70 him as man ripe in years and
full of knowledge. and they asked him,
Where did we come from %. and no
doubt Moses (until he had adjusted his
thinking cap gave them an evasive an
swer But farther Moses found that
this question, like "Banquo's Ghost
would not down Where did We come
from?" was being continually drummed
in his ears, and an answer must be
given, and so one fine morning Moses
gave his ultimatum and said, In the
beginning" etc.
Now, friend Darwin, who is standing
with his spinal column against that Of
Moses. heard what the latter said about
A beginning, and like a great many
other latter-day scientific men, he did
not believe it. Yet Moses in an ambigu-
Gus and dreamy sort of way said that
far, very far, in the dim and distant
past, there was once upon a time a be-
gnning-and. having admitted a begin
ming, a beginner must of necessity be
found, and this beginner Moses called
God; and the greatest and most perfect
of all this beginners work was man.
Now Moses, partaking of the charac-
teristics of his people, was of a deeply
poetical nature, and God TO him meant
far more than the simple conjunction
OF three letters. God was the unknown
the incomprehensible-hi ideal God was
50 large and grand that 10 see as whole
were impossible, and equally impossible
to understand his story Of creation. And
so he told his story of creation. II mat
tiers not that this story may have been
told many times before, what we have
10 do with is the fact that he is accred-
tied with the telling-and, no doubt, like
all other twice told tales" il has not
lost anything in its last narration. and
SO the story came down to us. and for
ages was generally believed until Charles
Darwin stepped boldly in where mortals
feared to tread-to say nothing of an
gels.
Now, Charles Darwin. as I before sta
ted. hearing what Moses had said about
beginning, did not believe it. and so
he. too. said lin the beginning" And
then inverting his mental telescope, he
looked in the other direction and took
the backward trail from man down TO
me first expression of life. Darwin
mental makeup would not countenance
the beginner described by poetical Moses
His beginner must be so minute that
you could not by any possibility see it.
and consequently its existence could not
very well be disputed, and this first ev-
dence of life he called protoplazm.
You Will notice that Moses and Oar
WIn agree on one point-that is. that
man vas gods, or natures, last and
best effort
Now as a proof that great minds do
not always run in the same channel I
will. in confidence, tell you that I do
not believe in either the Mosaic or the
DarS inian theory. In Darwin's chain
there are too many missing links Ma
lure calls too many halts that are pat
snt to any one who observes and thinks.
Millions of years viii not account for the
different species. If Darwin is right and
creation is still going on. why do we
not find a protoplazm in transit? We
do hear of races of man and of different
kinds of animals dying out. but Of no
new ones coming in. Darwin cites us TO
the horse, dog, pigeon. etc, how they
nave and can be improved, but this is
deVelopment-not evolution. as l under
stand II. The horse may acquire a $50
gait. the pigeon may become fan-tail,
the dog pointer-and Yet no one faniil-
lar with either horse, pigeon or dog will
ever mistake them for any other animal
They are simply animals that have learn
ed new tricks.
As TO the evidence found in rocks Of
q vertebraical record. those records on
" show TO me the evolution of an idea
l. you ask me who's idea, / cannot tell
you. The man who first conceived the