Man And His Ancestor: A Study In Evolution

There could, of course, have been no
human witnesses, as there would have been no preceding human beings, and
witnesses not human have, in the present day, no standing in our courts.
As the case stands, however, the doctrine arose in an age when man did
not trouble himself about evidence, but was content to accept his
opinions on authority; and this, strangely enough, is held by many to be
a strong point in its favor, it gaining, in their minds, authenticity
from antiquity. It is claimed, indeed, to be sustained by divine
authority, but this is a claim that has no warrant in the words of the
statement itself, and one to which no form of words could give warrant.
To establish it, direct and incontestable evidence from the creative
power itself would be necessary, and it need scarcely be said that no
such evidence exists. It is not easy, indeed, to conceive what form such
evidence could take. It would certainly need to be something far more
convincing than a statement in a book.

It might have been better for civilized mankind if the opening pages of
Genesis had never been written, since they have played a potent part in
checking the development of thought. As the case now stands, the
cosmological doctrines they contain can no longer claim even a shadow of
divine authority, since they have been distinctly traced back to a human
origin. It has been recently discovered that they are simply a
restatement of the Babylonian cosmology, as given in a literary
production ages older than the Bible, an epic poem of very remote date.
They are, doubtless, an outgrowth of the cosmological ideas of early
man, and those who accept them must do so on the basis of belief in
their probability; it is no longer permissible to claim for them the
warrant of divine origin.

Modern science stringently demands facts in support of any assertion,
the word "faith" having no place in its lexicon. Facts are absolutely
and necessarily wanting in support of the creation doctrine, and the
only argument its advocates can advance is one that deals in negatives,
and demands its acceptance on the ground that the opposite doctrine has
not been proved. Such an argument is valueless. Disproof of one
statement is never proof of another. Its effect is simply to leave both
unproved, and neither, therefore, in condition for acceptance. In the
present case the weight of disproof is small. The facts in support of
the evolution hypothesis are multitudinous, and many of them of great
cogency; the facts against it are few, and none of them absolute. It is
simply argued that some questions remain unsolved, and that there are
facts which seem inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of development,
and which no supplementary hypotheses have explained. But no advocates
of evolution hold that the Darwinian theory is final. Evolution is a
growing doctrine. It has been expanding ever since it was first
promulgated. Various seeming difficulties have been explained away, and
it is quite possible that all may disappear as investigation widens. No
such arguments add any weight to the opposite view, which has not and
never could have any standing in science, since it is impossible to
adduce any facts to sustain it. We shall therefore dismiss it from
further consideration, and proceed to state certain general facts in
favor of the evolutionary hypothesis of the origin of man.




II

VESTIGES OF MAN'S ANCESTRY


When, some centuries ago, men began to find fossil remains of animals in
the rocks, a severe shock was given to the prevailing doctrine of the
recent creation of the earth. The adherents of the old theology made
strenuous efforts to explain away this unwelcome circumstance. The
shells found had been dropped by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem;
they were mineral simulations of shells; they had been created by the
Deity and placed where found; they were anything but what they appeared
to be, the existing evidences of a long ancient period of animal life
reaching back very far beyond the assumed date of creation.

It need scarcely be said that these explanations, especially the one
that God had created fossil forms to deceive man, for some
incomprehensible purpose, could not long be maintained. Some of them
were inconsistent with the facts, others with common sense, and in due
time it was everywhere admitted that the earth is of remote duration and
has been inhabited by animals and plants for untold ages. Its structure
revealed its history; its annals were found to be written in the rocks;
its anatomy was full of the evidences of its origin.

When, not many years ago, men began to find the fossil remains of
ancient structures in the body of man himself, theology was brought face
to face with a problem as difficult to explain, from its special point
of view, as that of the fossils in the rocks. As the latter had
threatened and finally disproved the doctrine of the special creation of
the earth, so the former assailed the doctrine of the special creation
of man, and annihilated it in the minds of many eminent scientists.