Works Dealing with Evolution
The Origin of Species
By Charles Darwin
The Story of Creation
By Edward Clodd
Man's Place in Nature
By T. H. Huxley
Evolution of the Idea of God
By Grant Allen
The Kingdom of Man
- Sir E. Ray Lankester
Last Words on Evolution
By Ernst Haeckel
A Picture Book of Evolution
By Dennis Hird, M.A.
The Pioneers of Evolution
By Edward Clodd
An Easy Outline of Evolution
By Dennis Hird, M.A.
To be obtained of WATTS & Co., Johnson's Court, Fleet
Street, London, E.C.4 ; and of THE TRUTH SEEKER
COMPANY, Forty-nine Vesey Street, New York.
THE ANTI-Evo-UTIONIST's 25
ANSWERED CENTS.
THE TRIUMPH
EVOLUTION
By JOSEPH McCABE
In this masterly treatise
the author proves almost
beyond challengethat there
is not, and there has not
been for more than twenty
years, a single authority
on the subject in the world
who has any doubt about
the truth of Evolution. He
furnishes a list of the DEAD
MEN who are quoted by
the Bryanites as witnesses
against Evolution, and
shows that these men did
not reject Evolution, but merely criticized it before the
evidence was fully collected and sifted. Finally, Mr. McCabe
outlines the distinction between Darwinism and Evolution,
and presents in brief the overwhelming case for Evolution.
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... --- s =ºr----- *-* * ... - - -&-
st-
i
TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
THE TRIUMPH OF
EWOLUTION
BY
JOSEPH MCCABE
NEW YORK
THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY.,
FORTY-NINE WESEY STREET
FIrst published Octobor, 1925
Printed in Great Britain
by Watts & Co., Johnson's Court,
Fleet Street, London, E.C.4
CONTIENTS
*-*mºms
THE TRUTH OF EVOLUTION -
A LIST OF DEAD MEN - tº-
DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION -
EVOLUTION ONLY A THEORY -
DIFFICULTIES ABOUT EVOLUTION
THE EVOLUTION OF MAN - -
5
10
17
21
24
27
TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
EFORE me are copies of a score of books against
Evolution which are at present circulating in
England and America. The bolder of them have such
titles as The Bankruptcy of Evolution, The Collapse of
Evolution, and The Death-Bed of Darwinism. As the
notorious “monkey trial” in Tennessee has recently
shown us, tens of millions of people in England and
America share the ideas which are set out in these
books. For it is not only in Tennessee, but in twenty
other States of the American Union, that the fierce battle
to exclude Evolution from the schools is raging; and
newspaper controversies in all parts of England show
that the tide is rising even here.
TEIE TRUTEI OF EVOLUTION
Over against this situation I set at once a statement
that will be fully vindicated in the next few pages. It is
this :— N
There is not, and there has not been for more
than twenty years, a single authority on the subject
in the world who has any doubt about the truth
of Evolution.
Take all the branches of science concerned with life and
man: geology, biology, zoology, botany, anatomy, physio-
logy, embryology, psychology, and anthropology. There
7 *
8 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
is not a university professor of one of these sciences or
head of an important museum in the world who does
not regard Evolution as one of the most solidly estab-
lished truths. Most of them will go further, and say
that it is the most important and illuminating truth ever
discovered. And the professors of other sciences, of
chemistry, and astronomy, of education or ethics or com-
parative religion or sociology, will add that it is true
also in their sciences. It is the greatest discovery we
have made about the universe and everything in it.
In a word, the whole of modern science is agreed upon
the subject; and no one questions that it is a scientific
subject. On the other hand, the books and pamphlets
against Evolution to which I have referred are written
by politicians, clergymen, or journalists; that is to say,
by men who have no authority whatever on the matter.
Yet tens of millions of men and women accept the
assurance of this handful of inexpert writers against the
quite unanimous verdict of several thousand university
professors who are experts on the subject.
It is no longer possible to ignore this situation. A
very vigorous and extensive effort is being made to exclude
Ivolution from the school; and, if we retort that Evolu-
tion is of the very essence of modern science, an effort
will be made to exclude science. In any case, the very
fact of this wide hostility to science must give concern
to every man who is interested in the advance and the
future of the race, and I propose to make clear a few
principles which may be of assistance to those who
would understand the conflict or give practical and
THE TRUTH OF EVOLUTION 9
patient answers to those who have been misled by books
or pamphlets against Evolution.
The first and most important point to understand is
that anti-Evolution writers invariably represent to their
readers that Evolution is disputed in science. The situa-
tion is not that men and women simply affirm their belief
in Genesis and profess that they are unconcerned as to
what men of science say. The works to which I have
referred are attacks on the theory of Evolution on what
are alleged to be scientific grounds; and an invariable
and most important feature of them is to quote numbers
of “professors” and “high scientific authorities” who
reject Evolution.
Careful study of this literature and its influence con-
vinces me that this is the essential part of it. Most
people have sufficient, let us say, sense of humour to
feel that the arguments on a point of science of a Jesuit
priest or an American politician have not much weight
if the whole of the scientific authorities are firm against
him. Invariably, therefore, the writers represent that
they are giving you the opinions and arguments of a
serious body of scientific critics of Evolution. The
names quoted are almost always the same, as the writers
know little about the subject and merely copy from each
other, and I have collected them from the whole series
of anti-Evolution books (Mauro, McCann, Gerard,
Fairhurst, Morton, Townsend, etc.).
And the first thing to impress upon the man who has
been influenced by these supposed testimonies against
Evolution is that the list of names is
10 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
A LIST OF DEAD MEN
These are not men who reject Evolution. They are men
of the last scientific generation, or last but one, who
criticized IEvolution decades ago, before the evidence was
fully collected and sifted. As a rule, no reference is
given to their works, and no mention is made of the time
at which they wrote. Living and dead, critics of Evolu-
tion and critics of Darwinism—a distinction to which I
return later—men of science and men of theology, are all
jumbled together, and the reader at least gets the
impression that there is actually an important difference
of opinion on Evolution in the scientific world. The
names are now being quoted in the local press all over
Britain, and I therefore give the complete list, with a
brief statement of the facts in each case.
“PROFESSOR” OWEN.—The writers do not even know
that they are referring to Sir Richard Owen, Huxley's
opponent of nearly seventy years ago. He died in 1892,
and his arguments were then already forgotten.
“PROFESSOR” voN HARTMANN.—Another pungent
illustration of the ignorance of the writers. K. R. E. von
Eartmann was neither a professor nor a man of science.
He was a philosopher and—a fact which is carefully sup-
pressed—an Atheist. Eſe criticized Darwinism, but he
was one of the most convinced IEvolutionists in Europe.
His full words were: “The theory of descent is safe, but
Darwinism has been weighed and found wanting.” The
first part of the sentence is generally omitted. He died
A LIST OF DEAD MEN 11
in 1906, but his chief work on Evolution was written in
1875.
BROFESSOR WIRCHOW,-Every single writer against
Evolution quotes Virchow; and not one of them mentions
(1) that he was an Agnostic all his life, (2) that he died
in 1902, and (3) that not one of his scientific colleagues
agreed with him about Evolution. After his death, in
fact, his son-in-law, Professor Rabl, declared that he
privately believed in Evolution, but tried to check the
teaching of it as it led to Socialism I He was in his
time a distinguished German pathologist, and to the end
he did not believe in God.
PROFESSOR. F. PFAFF.—This is almost too ridiculous
for comment. Pfaff, who was a teacher of natural
history at Erlangen, died, at an advanced age, in 1886 |
PROFESSOR HUXLEY.-Even some of the English
writers against Evolution have the effrontery to quote
(without reference) Professor Huxley. The words they
give seem to be from a garbled German version of some-
thing that Huxley said in 1870. He was, until his death,
the most powerful and consistent advocate, not merely
of Evolution, but of Darwinism.
PROFESSOR ST.GEORGE MIVART.—A nominal Roman
Catholic, but (as all his works testify) a thorough believer
in the evolution of all animals and plants and of the
human body. He criticized Darwinism, not Evolution.
I knew him personally, and he told me that he would
openly abjure his creed before he died; and, as he had
begun to do so when he died suddenly, the Catholic
12 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
Church refused to bury him. In any case, he died nearly
a quarter of a century ago.
“PROFESSOR” DENNERT.-Dennert never was a
university professor, and his doctor's degree is in philo-
sophy, not science. His only connection with science is
that for a few years, long ago, he taught science in a
sectarian college. Since 1908 he has been Director of
the German Kepler-Bund (a Christian Evidence Society),
and has not taught at all. His Death-Bed of Darwinism
is twenty years old, and has not the slightest scientific
value.
PROFESSOR DANA.—A distinguished American geo-
logist, and a friend and admirer of Darwin. His
biographer, D. C. Gilman, shows that he was an Evolu-
tionist, and no words of his can be quoted to the contrary.
Died in 1895.
“PROFESSOR” TownsBND.—An American clergyman,
never a university professor, and never had the slightest
connection with science. Born in 1836, and died long
ago, but too obscure for date to be ascertained. Eſis
Collapse of Evolution is merely a feeble pamphlet compiled
from other sources.
PROFESSOR L. BEALE.-Quoted by Mauro and others.
He never attacked Evolution, but only Materialism,
Died in 1906. /
LORD KELVIN.—Quoted by the same reckless writers.
Not opposed to Evolution, but to Materialism; and not a
biologist. Died in 1907.
A LIST OF DEAD MEN 13
“PROFESSOR” GERARD.—Quoted by A. W. McCann,
the most pretentious of the writers against Evolution.
And McCann, being a Roman Catholic, knows quite well
that “Professor” Gerard was simply a Jesuit priest,
neither a teacher nor a student of science.
“PROFESSOR” WASMANN.—Another of McCann's
“professors,” and, like the preceding, a Jesuit priest
(German). McCann prudently omits the words S.J.
after the names of Gerard and Wasmann. The latter is
an authority on ants, but his general views on biology
are eccentric and much ridiculed in science. $
“DR.” ETHERIDGE.--Every writer against Evolution
quotes (as a living authority) “Dr.” Etheridge, a
“renowned fossilologist [I] of the British Museum.”
Dr. Horton, the latest and most pretentious of the
English writers, makes him “the famous Curator of the
Natural History Museum.” But Mr. Robert Etheridge
was not a "doctor” of anything, and he was “Assistant
Keeper” of one section of the British Museum forty years
ago / He died (aged 84) in 1903.
PROFESSOR HAECKEL-Is quoted (without reference)
by nearly all these writers as saying that “most" of
the authorities are against Evolution. He says precisely
the opposite in all his works, down to his Last Words
on Evolution (p. 35). He was an ardent Darwinian as
well as an Evolutionist, but he quite admitted that
Darwinism was disputed.
“PROFESSOR” G. McCREADY PRICE.-Not a univer-
sity professor, but a teacher of geology in the college of
14 TEIE TRIUMPH OF EVOLUTION
the Seventh Day Adventists in Nebraska. Believes in
partial Evolution, but he has eccentric ideas on geology
which no geologist in the world shares.
DR, ROBERT WATTS.—An American preacher who
became a professor of theology in Ireland and wrote
against Evolution in 1875 ! Never had any connection
with, or knowledge of, science. Died in 1895.
DR. WARREN.—Said to be “of California University,”
but the full list of professors of that university (Minerva,
1925) contains no such name.
GEORGE TICKNER CURTIS.—Said by Mauro to have
written a “recent book” entitled Creation or Evolution.
It was published in 18871 And the author (who died in
1894, at the ripe age of 82) was merely an American
lawyer who know as much about science as American
lawyers usually do.
SIR. J. W. DAWSON.—Much quoted by these writers,
and certainly a distinguished geologist and opponent of
Evolution. The last of the Mohicans, in fact. The
writers omit to state that he died, at a very advanced
age, in 1899, and his opinions had been buried long
before him l
“PROFESSOR” G. F. WRIGHT.-Quoted by Dr. Morton,
who, however, omits to state that Wright was a clergy-
man, a teacher (not of geology) in a religious college, and
never a university professor. He was on the United
States Geological Survey. Died years ago. 2
There remain two distinguished men of science of the
A LIST OF DEAD MEN 15
*
present generation whose names are always quoted. I
set them apart because (1) they are the only living
authorities quoted, and (2) they do not oppose Evolution,
but Darwinism, which is a special theory of the machinery
of Evolution.
PROFESSOR FLEISCHMANN.—Ananatomist of Erlangen
University. But the work (Die Darwinsche Theorie) in
which he criticizes Darwin was published in 1903, and
is now of no value. He represents his own position as
isolated,” and says that “most of the professors here and
abroad adhere to Darwinism.” He accepts Evolution.
PROFESSOR BATESON.—A thorough Evolutionist,
whose criticisms of Darwinism are quite falsely repre-
sented as criticisms of Evolution. He thus states his
position: “With faith in Evolution unshaken—if, in-
deed, the word faith can be used in application to that
which is certain—we look on the manner of causation
of adapted differentiations as still wholly mysterious”
(Darwin and Modern Science, p. 99).
But the moment we begin to name critics of Darwinism
the list can be greatly extended. The Jesuit writer, Father
Gerard, for instance, has a list of scientific authorities of
his own; and it is bodily reproduced by the American
Catholic writer McCann in his scurrilous book, God—or
Gorilla. The Jesuit (The Old Riddle and the Newest
‘Answer) knows quite well the distinction between
Darwinism and Evolution, and merely says that those
whom he names are men who “reject Darwinism alto-
gether or admit it only with fatal reservations” (p. 76).
16 THE TRIUMPH OF EVOLUTION
It is rather humorous that, even with this restriction, he
falls back upon so many scientific men of the last or last
but one generation (Quatrefages, Blanchard, Von Baur,
Wolff, etc.), and includes well-known Rationalists like
Eartmann, Du Bois-Reymond, Virchow, Plate, Fechner,
etc., and men who are not scientists at all.
In any case, his imposing list, with the titles of twenty
or thirty German books, is perfectly useless. What
interests the religious reader is whether Evolution is or is
not disputed in science, not whether Darwin's particular
conception of Evolution is disputed. So there is no point
whatever in quoting distinguished modern Evolutionists
(as he does) like Driesch, Eimer, Kölliker, Plate, etc.
Indeed, a careful reader will notice that, when Father
Gerard goes on to discuss Evolution instead of Darwinism,
the only names he can quote are Sir J. W. Dawson (died
1899), Count de Saporta (died 1895), and a “Professor "
Williamson and Mr. Carruthers, who both wrote fifty
years ago l In other words, this most ingenious of all the
anti-Evolutionists cannot find one scientific authority to
quote, and he ends by admitting that “the great majority
of men of science” hold it to be “established beyond the
possibility of doubt” (p. 54). Why “the great majority,”
when he cannot name one man belonging even to the last
quarter of a century?
McCann (God—or Gorilla) reproduces Gerard's learned-
looking list, as I said; and in his case it becomes quite
dishonest. The American Catholic throughout his book
means by “Darwinism” the general theory of Evolution,
or the evolution of man. Not one man on his list who
DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION 17
was alive even a quarter of a century ago rejects Darwin-
ism in that sense. Yet the work makes a great parade
of learning and circulates by the thousand.
There can be no doubt that the thing most urgently
needed ât the present time is to let the readers of this
anti-Evolution literature know how gravely they are
deceived on this point. There are now no “professors,”
no “men of science,” no “authorities” of any kind, who
reject Evolution. There have been none for twenty years.
Russel Wallace, who died in 1913, said that the mind of
man was not evolved. That opinion (a consequence of
his Spiritualism) died with him. After nearly seventy
years of discussion men of science are quite agreed about
the truth of Evolution. The man who, in face of that
unanimity, can attach any importance to the naive argu-
ments of Father Gerard, the humorous observations of
Mr. Bryan, or the bluster of Mr. McCann, must have a
singular type of mind.
DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION
But it is advisable now to go further and make quite
clear the distinction between Evolution and Darwinism.
. Most of these inexpert writers of books and pamphlets
know so little about the subject that they do not them-
selves understand the distinction. Even when they
understand and indicate it, they confuse the minds of
their readers by heaping up the names of critics of
Darwinism, and conveying the impression that this
weakens the case for Evolution.
18 TEIE TRIUMPH OF EVOLUTION
I showed this in the case of Father Gerard, and it is
much the same in a recent work by H. C. Morton, which
finds much favour in English religious circles. It is
entitled The Bankruptcy of Evolution, and it, as usual,
professes to give the “verdicts of eminent scientists.”
They are, of course, the familiar criticisms of Darwinism ;
yet the author, who shows that he is quite aware of the
distinction, ends by saying: "Thus it is clear that not
only the particular Darwinian theory is widely rejected,
but also the theory of Evolution itself” (p. 103). Never-
theless, when, in the next chapter, he looks for “verdicts
of eminent scientists” against Evolution, he can quote
only the venerable old fossil Sir J. W. Dawson (who died
twenty-six years ago), the Rev. G. F. Wright (whose
clerical character he omits to state), Virchow (died 1902),
and “Dr.” Etheridge (quite wrongly described, and died
in 1903). The book is almost as rich in blunders as
McCann's book. *
It is clearly most important to fix the distinction be-
tween Evolution and Darwinism; and it is not difficult.
The full title of Darwin's great work, which appeared in
1859, is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection. Well, that is simply Darwinism. It is not
the belief in Evolution, but the belief that the cause, or
chief cause, of Evolution was natural selection.
To make the point quite clear to the inexpert, let us
take a simple matter like the giraffe's neck. Long before
Darwin, in the eighteenth century, a brilliant French
natural philosopher, Lamarck, taught Evolution. The
giraffe got its long neck, he said, because individual
\,
DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION 19
giraffes strained upward after the higher leaves of the
trees, and the mother passed on her somewhat lengthened
neck to her offspring, which in turn strained upward and
handed on the modification. That is one theory of how
the different animals developed or evolved their charac-
teristics; and there are still distinguished men of science
who call themselves Lamarckians (not Darwinians) or
Neo-Lamarckians.
Darwin had a different theory. In any herd of giraffes
some will have longer necks than others. They will get
most food, live longest, and breed most. So in time the
neck will become longer and longer. Nature “selects”
the fittest (in this case, the longer-necked) by killing off
the less fit (the shorter-necked). This principle was so
simple, and seemed at first to apply so generally in nature,
that after a time nearly the whole of science accepted
"evolution by natural selection.” But living nature
means half a million species of animals and plants, each
of a most intricate character, and it was quite impossible
for one man, or one generation, to survey it thoroughly.
Difficulties arose. Certain organs were pointed out which
could not be imagined as formed by the accumulation of
small improvements. Thirty or forty years ago natural
selection had serious difficulties to explain away; and
Darwin quite acknowledged this, saying that he did not
claim it to be the only agency of Evolution.
Moreover, in Darwin's time embryology was a most
imperfect science, and Darwin wisely left it quite open
what the cause was of variations in any litter of young.
A theory of this was put forward by Weismann, and
20 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
generally accepted. On this theory a mother could
not transmit to the young any modification of organs
which she had experienced in her own life, so an
important part of Darwin's teaching was generally
abandoned, though some (Kölliker, MacBride, etc.) still
adhere to it,
More recently embryologists have generally adopted a
new theory called Mendelism, and most of the modern
authorities quoted above conceive Evolution on "Men-
delian "instead of “Darwinian" lines. This is no place
to enter into the details of the various theories. Not one
of them is proved or universally accepted. Science, in
other words, is very far from agreed as to the cause or
agency or machinery of Evolution. To return to our
giraffe's neck, you may, in explaining its origin, follow
either Lamarck (modified) or Darwin or Weismann or
Mendel. These are special theories of the cause of
Evolution. The fact itself is now “established beyond
the shadow of a doubt.”
Anti-Evolution writers gloat over these differences of
theory of men of science, but it is foolish and frivolous.
Do they expect men of science to unravel the deepest
problem of nature in a single generation when during
the previous 5,000 years of civilization learned men had
made no progress whatever in explaining it 2 The truth
is that their own conduct in confusing Darwinism and
Evolution is open to very grave censure. Their object
is to assure their readers that they may continue to accept
the Biblical story of creation literally because Evolution
is not true. It is quite clear that the truth or untruth
EVOLUTION ONLY A TEIEORY 21
of Darwinism, as a particular theory of the cause of
Evolution, does not affect that issue at all.
As I write, I obtain from America an article by Mr.
G. B. Shaw in which it is said that “no man under
seventy" now accepts natural selection. The statement
is grotesque. Darwinism is disputed, but it still has
ample defenders; while the action of natural selection
in nature is one of the most palpable realities. When
Mr. Shaw goes on to say that Evolution is now regarded
as “creative Evolution,” or the work of mind, he is
talking even wilder nonsense. He could not quote a
dozen authorities for it out of five hundred. As long as
men and women look for guidance on science to literary
men like Mr. Shaw and Mr. Belloc, who have not even
a moderate acquaintance with any branch of science,
however small, they ought to know what to expect.
IEVOLUTION ONIY A TELEORY
The next great objection is that Evolution is “only a
theory,” and therefore it may change like Darwinism or
any other theory. Here again we have to be perfectly
clear. What is the difference between a fact and a
theory 2 A fact, most people will say, is something that
has been actually observed. A theory is an explanation
or interpretation of facts. A theory may, of course, be
an anticipation of a fact. The existence of the planet
Neptune, or of the cancer-germ, was a “theory” until
the planet or the germ was actually observed. Generally,
22 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
a theory is an explanation of a body of facts or of the
causes of them.
Eut there are theories and theories. Many a Welsh
or Scottish miner, of narrow religious views, scoffs at
Evolution as a “mere theory.” Yet he is daily handling
the fossil remains of animals and plants of millions of
years ago, and he never reflects that it is a “mere
theory” that these were once alive. One need not be
a miner. In every city to-day there is a museum con-
taining thousands of “fossil” (which means “dug up”)
remains of animals and plants. Eſas anybody ever seen
them alive? Yet is there to-day a man or woman in
the world who doubts for a moment that they are the
remains of animals and plants which once lived ? Stupid
as some of the remarks of these anti-Evolution writers
are, they have never ventured to question that. But it is
a mere theory, an interpretation of facts. Indeed, a per-
fectly sound point against every one of these writers could
be made by reminding him that, if a fact is a thing
observed, then the belief in God is a theory, an interpre-
tation of the universe or of one's experience. To most
philosophers the existence of the universe itself is a mere
theory.
IPlainly, a theory may be as certain as a fact. The
theory that the coal we burn was once a living forest
is as certain as the existence of the coal. The theory
that the petrified forms of fishes and reptiles in our
museums were once alive is as certain as that they are
now dead. Why? Because the alternative is too repug-
nant for us to ontertain. If we doubted whether these
EWOLUTION ONLY A TEIEORY 23
are the remains of animals and plants that once lived, we
should have to believe that God created these countless
billions of dead fossil forms in the rocks.
But the theory of Evolution is on precisely the same
footing. We have four sets of facts to explain, and each
set contains millions of individual facts. First, we have
the millions of dead forms in the rocks, rising consis-
tently, from age to age, from the lowest level of life to
the highest. Secondly, we have the half million species
of living forms in nature to-day. The fossil forms in the
upper strata of the earth's crust lead on to the species of
to-day and lead backward to common ancestors. Thirdly,
we have the peculiar distribution of animals and plants
over the earth, even on isolated volcanic islands, which
Evolution alone explains. Fourthly, we have in all the
higher animals useless organs or traces of organs which
are completely unintelligible unless they are inherited
from ancestors of a quite different character in which
they were useful.
There is a fifth set of facts, the facts of embryology;
but a few men of science do not agree to the interpreta-
tion here, and I wish to confine myself strictly to what
they are all agreed upon. The four sets of facts are
studied in geology, botany, zoology, anatomy, and phy-
siology; and, as I said, there is not a university pro-
fessor of those sciences in the world who does not, like
Professor Bateson, say that Evolution is “certain.”” -
* I am, of course, speaking of free universities, not sectarian
universities, which require professors to conform to dogmatic
standards.
24 THE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
But this is not all. Astronomers are just as certain
of the evolution of worlds. Physicists are just as certain
of the evolution of matter (in stars, for instance). And,
at the other end of the scale, there is overwhelming
evidence of the evolution of States, nations, social and
political forms, religions, languages, moral codes—all
man's ideas and institutions.
The basis of the theory of Evolution is, in fact, enor-
mously greater than the basis of the theory that fossils
are the petrified remains of animals and plants. It is
the whole universe and everything in it. Not one thing
in the universe has been found which is inconsistent
with Evolution; and millions of things in it bear
witness to Evolution as plainly as smoke bears witness
to fire. Scientists who believe in God are just as con-
vinced as those who do not. Not one will admit that
there is room for doubt about Evolution.
DIFFICULTIES ABOUT EVOLUTION
Now that I have made it quite clear that all men of
science are agreed, and have been agreed for a quarter of
a century, on the fact of Evolution, perhaps even the
religious reader will smile when a Jesuit or a journalist,
a “Professor” Townsend or a “Professor” Fairhurst,
talks to him about the “scientific difficulties” of Evolu-
tion.
It will be plain how most of this is done. The writers
have ransacked the whole literature of forty or fifty
DIFFICULTIES ABOUT EVOLUTION 25
gears ago, when Evolution was disputed, for their argu-
ments. Look again at their books, and you find that
the references are to Broca, Quatrefages, Dawson, Owen,
Lydekker, Max Müller, Fabre, etc. All very dead. You
might as well quote George Stephenson on the possi-
bilities of locomotives, or Bell on modern telephony.
We respect these men for their early caution and their
wish to ascertain the truth. But to quote them to-day,
and especially to suppress the date and give ignorant
people the impression that they are living authorities, is
not evidence of the same moral qualities.
Naturally there are difficulties about Evolution :
myriads of difficulties. There are so many difficulties
that some scientific men urge us to confine ourselves to
accumulating facts, and leave it to a later generation—
granted, of course, the general truth of Evolution—to
speculate about causes and origins. But there is no
need to be so heroic. Speculation is both interesting
and useful, provided we are ready to abandon a theory
when a fact turns up which is inconsistent with it. In
seventy years of research, all over the earth, no fact
has yet turned up that is inconsistent with Evolution.
On the contrary, everything points to it.
It is amusing to turn over the pages of these amateur
anti-Evolutionists. How, they ask, do we explain the
instincts of the ant or the bee? The water-spider?
The wings of the bat 2 The marking of the zebra 2
The colours of shells or butterflies 2 The metamorphoses
of insects and frogs 2 And so on.
Half the things in which they find profound diffi-
26 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
culties were explained long ago, but the writers do not
read modern books, because they find in them no criti-
cisms of Evolution. Not one of these anti-Evolutionists
has more than a scanty and superficial smattering of
Science. How any grown man comes to take them as
guides on scientific matters is not easily understood.
They worry about the origin of life, and they have clearly
not read a page of the modern literature of that subject.
They tell us, learnedly, that Evolution is a process, not a
cause: as if anybody were likely to overlook the fact.
They even puzzle over the very simple and intelligible
fact that higher and lower species exist side by side in
nature to-day ! They point out triumphantly that science
never observed the transformation of one species into
another: a childish argument, seeing that science is but
a century old, while the great laboratory of nature is a
thousand million years old.
I cannot here go into any of these matters. Scores
of modern books (never quoted by these writers) will tell
you what we know, and what we have still to learn,
about them.” But, of course, there are plenty of obscu-
rities. There will be for decades, if not centuries.
Perhaps I may, without offence, put it to the religious
reader in this way. You say that Scripture is a revela-
tion from God, and you know that fifty generations of
Christian scholars have been at work on it. Yet look at
the violent dissensions of Christendom to-day over its
meaning, the multiplicity of sects, the wide differences of
* My A B C of Evolution (Watts; 1s. 6d., paper) will be found
useful by beginners. It is quite simple and untechnical.
THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 27
theologians even in one sect And you expect Evolu-
tionists to have ready a clear explanation of everything
in the universe in a single generation.
TEIE EVOLUTION OF MAN
The loudest claim of the anti-Evolutionists is that we
have found no “missing links,” and we may test this in
regard to the most important point of all—the evolution
of man.
What is a missing link? It would be better to say
connecting link, and to understand very clearly what the
two terms are which we have to connect. Now, if you
are thinking of links between a chimpanzee and modern
civilized man, there are plenty of links. We have every
degree of savagery on the earth to-day, and the lowest
savages take us a long way back. The distance from a
pure Veddah or a Bushman to an ape does not look so
great.
It is, moreover, certain that the whole race was once
at the level of the lowest savage. Ten thousand years
ago there was not even an elementary civilization any-
where on the earth. That is certain. Twenty thousand
years ago there was no race on earth capable of making
the simplest pottery, or having the simplest written
language. Fifty thousand years ago no race had a bow
and arrow or a hafted weapon. So we can go back and
back until we come to a time when the whole race was
lower than the lowest savage of to-day, and only capable
28 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
of knocking two flints together to make a rough edge on
one of them. An international commission of scientific
men (including a priest, the Abbé Breuil) came to England
two years ago to examine a find (on the east coast) of
such flints. They unanimously agreed that the makers
of those flints were in Britain more than half a million
years ago, and were much lower than anything human
that we know.
Writers like Gerard and McCann, who skim the pages
of a few scientific books in order to “attack Evolution,”
have not the least appreciation of the truth about pre-
historic man. They tell you that he was a wonderful
man, a superb artist, with a great brain. They do not
know, apparently, that the prehistoric drawings to which
they are referring—and have never seen, or they would
know that most of them are extremely crude “art” and
very obscene—belong to only twenty or thirty thousand
years ago: the last part of the Old Stone Age. Man had
already been evolving for millions of years before he could
scratch the crudest drawing on stone. Another favourite
writer of the school, Mauro, says that “the Engis skull
is supposed to be the oldest known up to now.” He says
this because it contained a large brain; but, instead of
being anything like the oldest, it is one of the very latest
skulls of the Old Stone Age |
McCann, by the way, whose book is merely a hotch-
potch of the differences of opinion of scientific men in
the early stages after a new find, tries to create pre-
judice by referring grossly and repeatedly to “Haeckel's
forgories.” I have put on record the facts about this
THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 29
disgraceful untruth so often that I may very briefly
summarize them here.
Haeckel, being a good artist, illustrated his own works,
and he often used diagrams instead of photographs, as
most scientific writers do. Many scientific men held that
Haeckel took too much liberty in this, but when in 1909
a certain Dr. Brass accused him of “falsification” (not
“forgery”), and Dr. Brass's society, the Kepler-Bund,
appealed to the men of science to condemn him, they,
on the contrary, issued a manifesto “condemning in the
severest terms” (it says) his accuser | The two mani-
festoes organized in reply by the Repler-Bund are not
signed by a single authority; the manifesto defending
Haeckel is signed by forty-six of the most distinguished
professors of anatomy, zoology, and embryology in
Germany. That is the truth about "Haeckel's forgeries.”
On such points one might justly expect these anti-
Evolution writers to ascertain the truth; but on the
larger questions of science, which require long years of
study, they are hopelessly ill-instructed. They quarrel
about Piltdown man and Java man—never giving the
facts correctly—in the language of ten or twenty years
ago. The man who expects to learn “science” from
totally inexpert and violently partisan writers has strange
ideas of truth. There is, moreover, a lack of decency,
dignity, and restraint about most of this literature which
contrasts painfully with the infinitely painstaking and
conscientious character of scientific work.
We are filling up very satisfactorily the gaps between
man and the ape. Only lately we have found, at Taungs
30 TEIE TRIUMPEI OF EVOLUTION
in South Africa, the skull of a being much higher than
any known ape. At the human end we have the Java
bones (now confidently labelled the Ape-man in every
museum), the Mauer jaw, and the Piltdown skull and jaw
(now reconstructed, and agreed upon, in a way of which
McCann says nothing). All these are real connecting
links, and until a few years ago they were "missing
links.” Quite apart from these bones, however, the stone
implements of early man, of which we have millions,
show that the whole race was at the lowest degree of
Savagery a million years ago, and they would of them-
selves prove the evolution of man, body and mind, even
if not a single bone had survived. When we add to this
the fact that man has just the same shrunken or atrophied
organs as the ape (the ears, tail, or male breasts, for
instance), there is not room for the shadow of a doubt.
But I ask the religious reader to reflect at least on
the facts which he knows. On the one side all the
authorities in the world are agreed upon Evolution.
On the other side the theological authorities are in
hopeless disagreement about the story of creation in
Genesis. The more learned the theologian, the more
certain it is that he regards Genesis as folklore and
accepts Evolution. What, in such circumstances, is the
value of the crude compilations (mainly from ancient
literature) of Mauro, Morton, McCann, Gerard, etc.?
Ask yourself.
And remember, Evolution is a social gospel as well as
a truth. It applies to man and his institutions to-day
more than it ever applied to anything before. I have
THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 31
just written a book (1825–1925: A Century of Stupendous
Progress) in which I survey and measure the progress
made in the last hundred years. In that century of
Science, and on account of science, man has made more
progress than he had ever before made in a thousand
years. The pace is faster than ever. Mr. Bryan, who
was at least sincere, did not know that. In his ignorance
of science he tampered with the mainspring of progress.
Dut the world will fight for its new ideals of light and
liberty and progress as strenuously as interested folk fight
for ignorance and reaction.
WORKS BY JOSEPH MCCABE
1825-1925: A Century of Stupendous
Progress
Is Evolution True 2
Being a Verbatim Report of the Debate held at Queen's Hall,
§§§Å; §: §§ § {*s. with Professor GEORGE
The Eyolution of Mind -
The Lourdes Miracles: A Candid Inquiry
The Bankruptcy of Religion
Modern Rationalism
The Growth of Religion
The Religion of Sir Oliver Lodge
Twelve Years in a Monastery
The Twilight of the Gods
The Church and the People
A Biographical Dictionary of Modern
Rationalists
Life-Story of George Jacob Holyoake
Life-Story of Robert Owen
Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud?
A New Creed for a New World
The Influence of the Church on Marriage
and Divorce
The Sources of the Morality of the
Gospels
The War and the Churches
The Existence of God
The Popes and their Church
To be obtained of WATTS & CO., Johnson's Court, Fleet
Street, London, E.C.4; and of THE TRUTH SEEKER
COMPANY, Forty-nine Vesey Street, New York.
Works Dealing with Evolution
The Origin of Species
By Charles Darwin
The Story of Creation
By Edward Clodd
Man's Place in Nature
By T. H. Huxley
Eyolution of the Idea of God
By Grant Allen
The Kingdom of Man
- Sir E. Ray Lankester
Last Words on Evolution
By Ernst Haeckel
A Picture Book of Evolution
By Dennis Hird, M.A.
The Pioneers of Evolution
By Edward Clodd
An Easy Outline of Evolution
By Dennis Hird, M.A.
To be obtained of WATTS & CO., Johnson's Court, Fleet r
Street, London, E.C.4 ; and of THE TRUTH SEEKER -
COMPANY, Forty-nine Vesey Street, New York.