The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-09-17
HaeCkeI.
on Last Words
on Evolution"
BY ERNST HAEcKEL.
CHAPTER II.
THE STRUGGLE OVER OUR GEN.
EALOGlcAL TREE.
Continued from previous issue.)

The reserve structures that l have
passed on the sophisms and trickery
Of this ecclesiastical evolution" are
not directed against the person and
the character Of Father Wasmann, but
the Jesuitical system which he repre-
sents. l do not doubt that this able
naturalist (who is personally un-
known to me) has written his book in
good faith, and has an honorable am
bition to reconcile the irreconcilable
contradictions between natural evo-
luton and the story Of supernatural
creation. But this reconciliation of
reason and superstition is only pos
sible at the price of a sacrifice Of the
reason itself. We find this in the case
of all the other Jesuits--Fathers Cath
rein, Braun, Besmer, Cornet, Lins-
meier, and Muckermann-whose am
biguous "Jesuitical science" is aptly
dealt with in the article of R. H.
France that l mentioned before NO
20 of the Freie Wort, 10th February,
1904, Frankfort).
This interesting attempt Of Father
Wasmann's does not stand alone
Signs are multiplying that the church
militant is about to enter on a sys-
tematic campaign. heard from
Vienna on the 18th of February that
on the previous day (Which happened
to be my birthday Jesuit, Father
Giese, had, in a wellreceived address,
/ Cd on1x ~.
eral, but even in it's application to
man, and declared 1t to be reconcil-
able with catholic dogmas-and this
at a crowded meeting of ''catechists!"
! 1t Is important to note that in a new
catholic cyclopaedia, Benzinger's Iii
brary of Science" the first three vol
umes ISSUED at Einsiedeln and Co
logne, 1900 deal very fully and ably
with the chief problems of evolution
| the first with the formation of the
earth, the second with spontaneous
generation, the third with the theory
of descent. The author of them,
Father M. Gander, makes most re-
markable concessions to our theory,
and endeavors to show that they are
not inconsistent with the Bible or the
dogmatic treatises of the chief faith
ers and school-men. But, tho there
is a profuse expenditure Of sophis.
teal logic in these Jesuiticai efforts,
Gander will hardly succeed in mis-
leading thoughtful people. One of his
characteristic positions is that spon-
taneous generation (as the develop
ment of organized living things by
purely material processes) Is incon-
ceivable, but that 1t might be made
possible "by a special divine arrange
ment." In regard to the descent of
man from other animals (Which he
grants), he makes the reserve that
the soul must in any case have been
produced by special creative act.
1t would be useless to go thru the
innumerable fallacies and untruths OF
these modern Jesuits IN detail, and
point out the rational and scientific
reply. The vast power of this most
dangerous religious congregation con-
sists precisely in its device of accept
ing one part of science in order to
destroy the other part more effect
lively with it. Their mastery act Of
sophistry, their equivocal probable
ISM" their medacious "reservatio men
tails" the principle that the higher
aim sanctifies the worst means, the
pernicious casuistry of Liguori and
Curry, the cynicism with which they
turn the hottest principles to the graft
fication of their ambition, have i'm
pressed on the Jesuits that black
character that Carl Hoenbroech has so
well exposed recently.
The great dangers that menace real
science, owing to this smuggling into
1t of the Jesuitical spirit, must not be
undervalued. They have been well
pointed out by France, Escherich, and
others. They are all the greater in
Germany at the present time, as the
government and the reichstag are
working together to prepare the way
4 for the Jesults, and to yield most per-
nicious influence on the scnool TO
these deadly enemies OF the free spirit
of the country. However, we will
hope that this clerical reaction repre-.
sents only a passing episode in mod
ern history. We trust that one per-
manent result Of It will be the recog-
milton, in principle, even by the Jes-
uits, Of the great idea Of evolution.
We may then rest assured that its
most important consequence, the de-
scent OF man from other primate
forms, will press on VIGOROUSLY, and
soon be recognized as a beneicent
and hopeful truth.
ITO Be Continued)