Evening star., 1925-07-01

! Editors No:e.--"The main street
OF Ddyton reaches far out into the
uorld and for do1c,l the centuries"
says LcmueI F. Portion, author OF
What Is EuolutfonP" the first
chapter Of trhich follo1os.
Mr.. Parton +. beHeues that this
trial IN the little Tennessee court
room tchtch aOitnesses again "the
oge-old cleavage of humanity" triH
make its chief participants, WI
liam Jennings Bryan and Clarence
Ddrroto, historical figures. So 1Dfde
are the rdmifcdtions spreudtng
from the discussion Of the QueS-.
tions inDolued in the eDoIutio7l con-
trorersy that 1t has stirred men
and euen nations from the time OF
the ancient Greeks.
This series is in no 1cdy contro-
rersi1l. 1t Is non partisan, non
technical attempt to tell. clearly
and briefly in simple language, just
Thdt evolution Is and tphU its dis
cussion has pldyed such an in,por-
tdnt part In the history of thought.
The articles 1oill appear daily until
the series Is completed.
Heaven and earth, center and cir
cumference. were made in the same
Instance of time, and clouds full of
water, and man was created by the
Trinity on the 26th Of October, 4004
B. c., at o'clock in the morning"
Thus did DIR. John Lightfoot, vice
chancellor of Cambridge University,
draw the metes and bounds of
fundamentalist doctrine IN 1864. His
findings are given here. not as fair
summary of the Mosaic account of
creation, but because they serve as
starting point in mans age-old effort
to box the compass OF human origin
and destiny.
The Two Extremes.
The modern worker in the realm of
chemical mechanics, reducing life and
it's origins, it's significance and its
destiny to chemical fornulae. STANDS
at the other extreme. At third
point Is the man who sees no funda
mental conflict between religion and
science, and who finds for the bibli-
cal story of creation a non-literal In
depreciation which brings 1t within
the range of modern scientific find
ings.
These three points roughly en-
compass mans greatest intellectual
battle-ground, and the issues involved
may be traced from their dim begin
ulnSS, ncdTly OcU gSoio pSioAS tAtS
Christian era, down to the little
courtroom in Dayton, Tenn. where
the giants of modern controversy Will
assail each other with arguments for
and against the doctrine OF evo-
luton.
Those who have maintained that
man and the universe were created
by the direct fiat of God have been
continuously opposed by speculative
thinkers of one school or another,
but it was not until the last century
that the theories of the dissenters
were given a scientific formulation.
1t was then that the theory of evo-
luton became the spearhead of those
who challenged revelation.
Issue Inevitable.
It now seems Inevitable that the doc
trine of evolution should have flowered
lust when 1t did-at a time when
command of new energies was trans
forming life, a time of intellectual un-
rest. and a wider diffusion OF knowl-
edge among the people. The essence
of the evolutionary theory is change,
and it's first comprehensive statement,
in the Origin of Species. by Charles
Darwin, came at a time of the most
sweeping changes, profoundly anect-
in fact. these changes were creating
a new environment, with the coming
of the Industrial age. For this rea son,
the entire controversy assumed an In
terest and Importance ranging Tar be-
-ond any merely academic discussion.
There are those who maintain that
philosophers merely trail fac1s-that
man acts In accordance with immuta-
hle laws, and then bulwarks his new
.g.l~ fofn nj
ophy. Whether this be true or not,
there is no escaping the fact that evo-
luton was an effort to square life
with changed environment, and
hence touched so many facets of life
that 1t Immediately challenged oppo.
sition and aligned authoritarians and
scientists in a battle to the death.
Three-Quarters of a century has wit
messed no decision in this encounter,
nor will the edict of the court In Day
ton, Tenn, bring about an armistice.
It is the age-old struggle between
those who hold to revelation and
those who exalt human faculties as
the only approach to truth.
Monkey Idea Wrong.
UNIFORMED opinion accepts vaguely
the erroneous idea-which will be dis
cussed later in this series-that the
essence of evolution is that men de-
scended from monkeys. This consid-
Grafton has no doubt added an inter
esting turn to the discussion, but it
is only one detail among many vastly
more important phases of the sub
ject. 1t Is the ethical, cultural and
social derivatives of the evolutionary
theory-as well as it's challenge of
revelation-which today make the
Dayton trial almost as big story as
a presidential election.
Herbert Spencer was the first to
mold Darwin's biological researches
into a philosophical matrix. He de-
duced from them new and pra agmatic
theory of good and evil, perhaps even
more challenging to esta blished re-
ligion than Darwin's assault on the
old cosmogony: he stated the dynamic,
as opposed to the static concept Of life,
which is the very essence of the ultra
ethic; he outlined the doc
trine of "laisser faire," a profound ra-
Of British imperialism;
he placed on the boards the question
of whether human society is an organ
ism-a controversy which still con-
tinues, and which is of great impor-
tance. as those who apply the laws of