Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1874 — Darwin’s Doctrine. [ARTICLE]

Darwin’s Doctrine.

Editors Union:—As many of the religious journals of the country ami some of the secular, and niosjt' of the ministers of the gospel have for the last two year's been laboring to disprove and bring into disrepute the doctrines of Darwin, denouncing them as infidel, degrading and ridiculous; and as most of the people have not had an opportunity of learning from any other source what his teachings are; I—having •read his late work and being disposed to treat him as a gentleman ol extensive learning and research, ami likely more IfSftiest than many who are flinging their missels at him—will give your readers (with your consent), an epitome of his views as I understand them, though I must confess there were some statements in the work I did not fully comprehend. The main object of Darwin is to prove that man originally descended from some lower animal, more likely from some marsupial animal; and that by natural atid sexual selection all classes and species of animals rise in the scale of being till, growing more perfect through the long ages upon ages of the past, some outstripping or superior class or 'species had become sb elevated and changed as to produce some specimens so Superior still that they sprang tip on two legs, walked erect, and were cajled Man. It is not the opinion of Mr. Darwin that man sprang from any of the higher species of the highest class of lower animals now on the earth. Ilis idea seems" to be that as the difference between the highest order of animals and the lowest order of animals is so great, that several I species of animals of a high order have become extinct; and that the animal which was the immediate progenitor of man does not now exist. To prove the above conclusions he labors through two volumes of several hundred pages each, producing arguments from zoology, geology and all the ologies of nature that, have any bearing on the subject. I shall not attempt to give even the outlines of his arguments, or I should have to write a pamphlet or small book, lie fre-. quently speaks of the “anthropomorphous ape?’ This term means looking like man, or being changed into his likeness. The photographs of sever al speeie's of inoll k ey 1 oak very much like men. The whole face, the ears, the chin, the mouth, the pyes, and the forehead have a strong resemblance to man. Those animals have reasoning powers, though much inferior to man’s. A leading argument is the rudiments of certain organs now become useless,.to iiian in his higher state, and occasional S.upernumerary organs as. muscles common and useful to lower animals, monstrosities, etc., called luces nat ura. Darwin admits that all races of men now on the earth sprang from the same parents, tlrp African and the Anglo-Saxon as extremes. But in their beginning they were extremely low in themale-of manhood, ami barbarous surely. Their lani guage was very imperfect; and they ' iiad no written language for thous- ! ands of "v e cord in gt o _ our i ■ !. best. histories. Look at the World I now. Some of the tribes of men I are yet so low that they cannot be ! Christianized. Some live on human : flesh; and others are destitute of I shame, thanb themselves over with : I dirty paint, and like the lower ani-1 : Dials live,. on such things as they can pick up. But I must stop the Darwinian train and make a few i observations of my own. I Ido not pretend to have embraced - the foregoing views. There are ■ some gaps winch lie seems to have ' left unfilled, and I am not able yet jto fill them. Prof. Ilu.tley’s late j paper on Spontaneous Generation i ’ might fill one gap, but. this is not : ■ all. Can animal life be produced by a certain combination of ele-i 1 ments, under certain favorable' circumstances, independently of an ' ovum produced by some parent' animal? The old law of produc- ■ tion expressed in the sentence, > omnia, ,cx ' from an egg—may not be universal. No one, perhaps, supposes that ’Adam was created with small pox over his body. Then how and i when did they originate? These ' views to many may savor of infideli ity. Darwin is called an Infidel.— i If he is one, he is so; but it must ■ be made out rather by inference or I implication, Tor I don’t remember ! that he mentions the Old or the New Testiament, or the name of Adam or Moses. Darwin's views f of the Origin of man seem more rational and scientific than the account in Genesis, said to be given by Moses. The loirncr view nf-

gards man and inferior animals as looking upwards; the latter, downwards. » According to Moses man was created upright; he sinned and became subject to death', and all the animal ,creation with him. — .Darwin had animals dying from natural causes for ages before the' creation of Adam according to Moses. I .don’t know how many people will embrace the views of Dsrwin, but we are well satisfied that there are only a few learned and thinking men who really believe the Mosaic account. We are of opinion that suck men generally regard the whole account as mere Jewish tradition. Who now be- | lievcs that the serpent crawled into the Garden and said to the woman “Thou shalt not surely die,” and was cursed to crawl on his belly all the days of his life? The whole account seems emotional and rather stupid.. Could any one who thinks suppose that the serpent had been walking about on the end of his tail, and that the curse brought him down on bis belly? If this is true would not any philosopher think it was a fine thing for the snake? But we will take another view of it, which seems more natural: that the great Creator was a Darwinian, anil “cursed him to crawl on his belly,” as he had been doing, “all the days of his life,” and not be.allowed to rise in the scale of being up towards manhood, as all other animals around him were doing. This would be a curse, truly. The term “infidel” is now hardly a term of reproach. The Rev. T A. Goodwin, of Indianapolis, is soon to be tried for denying the “plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, the resurrection of the body, and second coming of Christ.”

R.