The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-07-06
MISERABLE BEGINNING OF US ALL.

MISERABLE BEGINNING OF US ALL.
Well, at last and after many years. the Book of
Genesis is coming to its own again. After reject
ing the fact of creation, RELOCATING God into the
unknown and unknowable, telling us that the uni
verse was self-evolved and that our noble selves
were only developed monkeys or gorillas scientists
are now admitting that after all is said and done
there may be something in the Biblical history of
creation. Here is the dean of American natural
ists Dr. Theodore Nicholas Gill; said to be the most
learned of American biologists, admitting to a Salt
Lake Tribune representative, that in the last anal
ysis did come from the 'slime of the earth"
Back in 1882 Benjamin Constant startled his genera
ton by the novel but not original theory that the
first a savage. He published a book to prove
his contention and after building up wonderful
structure of Probabilities, possibilities, sophsms
and arguments, rested his case. Constant at once
like Theodas, became somebody" and the Biblical
doctrines of creation, of original sin, of Adams
supernatural instruction, of mans fall and redemD-
ton were RELOCATED to the ashheap of exploded doc
trines. Then came Auguste Comte, who laughed
to silence and folly Constants absurdity Comtp
riddled with argument and appeals to reason and
tradition the theories of Constant. Constant be-
a nobody. Auguste Comte, in a series of won
derful chapters-wonderful for their ingenuity
proved to his satisfaction and to- that of the
scientists of his time that man was evolved from
an extinct animal which he called l6rnur. And
now Comte became somebody"
Then arose Charles Darwin, and BIZ phenom-
email display of learning, the accumulation of years
of research into the regions of air, Sea and earth
proved, this time beyond the possibility of doubt
that the first man was gorilla. at once the
French savants and English scientists turned to
the rising sun and adored. Charles Darwin went
to bed on the evening of May 10, 1861, NOBODY,
and on May 20, arose hero and, Of course, %
somebody"
Well for time the English and Scotch had it
all to themselves. Herbert Spencer, Stuart Mill
Professor Huxley, Sir John Lubbock and an army
of lesser heroes poured hot shot and canister int
the breastworks of orthodoxy and the citadel of SUI
perstiton. They declared with a laugh and loud
guffaw that the orthodox entertainments were car
ried and the garrison annihilated. Such was the
tremendous cannonade on the citadel that the bill
lows and clouds of smoke of exploded powder dark
ened the heavens and hid the Notifications of
Christianity
Unable to see the citadel the army of free
thinkers cheered Justify and proclaimed to the
world that only the ruins of the Christian fort-
fcations remained. But in time the air purified
itself and to the amazement of the invaders the
citadel, Notifications and outerworks of the Chris
tian fort were intact Until now, the Americans
were "nobodies," having no Somebody" among
them. Then out from the nobodies stepped |. w
Draper, NJ. D.. Ii. D., and projected into the Chris
tian camp shell which he called Human Phys
ioogy, Statical and Dynamical" The explosion
was awful; that is the noise of the explosion, and
in the world of science, Professor Draper was at
once, somebody" 1t was thought that the ex-
ploding shell had ripped the Bible and the origin
of man to shreds. But when the smoke disap-.
peared and the reverberations were silent, the Bible
was still there with every leaf intact.
Well, this irritated Professor John Fiske of |
Harvard and he re-discovered the lost process of
making eighteenth century hand grenades He |
threw three of these into the Christian camp and |
he apparent effects were frightful. Fiske de-
,lared that any one who could not see for himself
hat these grenades had shattered the structure of
Christianity was blind, and as Fiske was now
somebody" he had large following Even the
light editors and beardless newspaper reporters
heered him and wished him increased glory and
uccess
Professors Draper and Fiske carried the origin
# man back to molecule-a tremendously small
ubstance. They were getting back to Genesis,
ure enough and we all awaited the coming of an
ther Somebody" And now the apparition is
ere. Listen to this. Our ancestors before the
pc "To go back beyond the mammals and fishes,
mphibians and dipnoans, we are confronted with
ista of interminable length through softbodied
orms extremely different from anything now liv-
lg, but resembling skull-less, translucent verte-
rae, or sea squirt which find attached to
tones and shells. Mans furth fer ancestry is lost
! an indefinite and innumeraS le series of worm