The Fifth Day"s Work. Animal life in sea and air.
"And G.o.d said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth upon the face of the expanse of the heaven"." "And G.o.d created great sea monsters, and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kinds, and every winged fowl after its kind." Geology and Moses alike testify that swarms of animals filled the seas. The ages rolled on while they "filled the waters of the seas and fowl multiplied on the earth."
The Sixth Day"s Work. The creation of land-animals and man.
"And G.o.d said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth after its kind"." The fifth day animals began to _swarm_ the seas; the sixth day, to cover the land. "And G.o.d said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"," in "knowledge after the image of him that created him," (Col. 3:10) and "in righteousness and true holiness,"
(Eph. 4:24). Yet a professor in a great university was so dense as to insist that the Scriptures taught that the likeness was not in "knowledge, righteousness and true holiness," but in the bodily form. "So G.o.d created man in his own image, in the image of G.o.d created he him." The last of all creation as both revelation and science testify. The image is mental and moral and spiritual. No such image in any other species.
The body chosen was higher and better than the form of any animal. It resembles the bodies of mammals of the highest type. Why should it not? The vast number of animal species, of almost every conceivable size and shape, could not furnish a form so well adapted to the use of man as that which the Creator gave him. Would it have been better if man had been created in the form of a fish, a lizard, a serpent, a dog, or a horse, or a bird? How could the body have been created without bearing resemblance to some form of the million species of animals? A resemblance can be traced through the whole creation, the material as well as the animal, but it does not follow that one species is descended from another, but that there was one general plan, and one G.o.d. The existence of man, who can not be otherwise accounted for, proves the existence of the Creator.
25. a.n.a.lOGY; MATHEMATICS, LAWS
a.n.a.logy raises a presumption against evolution. a.n.a.logy is not a demonstration. It is an ill.u.s.tration that strengthens and confirms other arguments. Both the science of mathematics and all physical laws must have come into being in an instant of time. Evolution is not G.o.d"s usual method of creation.
1. MATHEMATICS.--There is no evolution in the science of mathematics. There is no change or growth or development. G.o.d is the author of all mathematical principles. The square described on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares described on the other two sides, because he made it so. The circ.u.mference of a circle is approximately 3.1416 times the diameter because he made it so. The wonderful calculations by logarithms, whether by the common system with a base of 10, or the Napierian system with a base of 2.718+ a decimal that never terminates, are possible and reliable only because G.o.d made them so. Think what great intelligence is required by the Napierian system, to raise a decimal that never terminates, to a decimal power that never terminates, in order to produce an integral number. Yet G.o.d has computed instantaneously every table of logarithms, and every other mathematical table,--no matter how difficult. Thus we have positive proof of the presence everywhere of a great intelligent Being, and we catch a glimpse of that mind that must be infinite. He created the whole system of mathematics, vast beyond our comprehension, at once. A part could not exist without the whole. No growth; no change; no evolution; no improvement, because the whole system was perfect from the first. Reasoning from a.n.a.logy, is it not reasonable to say that the G.o.d who flashed upon the whole universe, the limitless system of mathematics in an instant, also created man as Moses said? a.n.a.logy supports the doctrine of the special creation of man in a day.
The great system of mathematics which could not exist without a creator, is so extensive that 40 units are taught in a single university. New subjects are added, new text books written, new formulas devised, new principles demonstrated,--and the subject is by no means exhausted. He, by whose will this fathomless science came into existence, knows more than all the mathematicians of the past, present and future, and possibly all the evolutionists of the world.
2. PHYSICAL LAWS.--All physical laws, prevailing throughout the universe, came into being by the will of G.o.d, in an instant of time. No growth, no change, no development, no evolution. The presumption is that G.o.d created all things in a similar way. If it was wisest and best to bring into being the great science of mathematics and fix all physical laws,--all in a moment of time, why should he consume 60,000,000 or 500,000,000 years in bringing man into existence? Evolution is all out of harmony with G.o.d"s other methods of work.
Gravitation was complete from the first. No growth; no evolution. The laws of light, heat, electricity, etc., remain unchanged. Light travels with the same unvarying velocity, as when, 60,000 years ago, it started from the distant star-cloud. Some estimate our universe to be 1,000,000 light years across. Yet in all these limitless reaches, the same perfect and complete laws prevail, touching light, heat, electricity, gravitation, etc. G.o.d makes no mistakes and no evolution is needed. Does not this furnish a presumption that G.o.d could and did create man complete and full grown with a wonderful body, and a soul in his own image?
In this discussion, we have spoken of the "laws" of nature, after common usage. But laws are only a record of G.o.d"s acts. An unchangeable G.o.d makes unchangeable laws. There is a rigid fixity written over the face of nature. Every law and principle is complete and perfect and finished, and there is no room for evolution.
Matter did not create itself, nor evolute nor grow. It must have been created instantaneously by the power of G.o.d, whether in a nebulous condition or not. So enchanting is their theory, that many profess to believe that not only were all species of animals and plants evolved from a single germ, but that even matter itself was evolved out of nothing. This theory of evolution as wide as the universe, as ponderous as the stars, is supported only by the weak stork legs of wistful possibility.
26. DESPERATE ARGUMENTS
Many arguments gravely given in support of evolution, reveal a great poverty of facts and logic. An instantaneous photograph of an "infant, three weeks old, supporting its own weight for over two minutes," is given by Romanes as a proof that man is descended from a simian (ape-like) ancestor. As this same picture is widely copied in evolution text books, they must have failed to get the picture of any other infant performing a like feat. Just how this affords any convincing proof that man is a monkey, we leave the reader to figure out. Our attention is called to the way this child and another child, whose picture is likewise generally copied, hold their feet (like monkeys climbing trees) showing they are little monkeys. Though we fail to see the force of this argument, it must be among their best from the emphasis they give it. Prof. H. H. Newman, of Chicago University, a leading evolutionist actually writes as follows, (Readings): "The common cotton-tail rabbit raises its white tail when it runs. This is interpreted [by whom, evolutionists or rabbits?] as a signal of danger to other rabbits."
The following absurd speculation, by a lecturer in the "University Extension Course," was printed in the Philadelphia Bulletin: "Evidence that early man climbed trees with their feet lies in the way we wear the heels of our shoes,--more at the outside. A baby can wiggle its big toe without wiggling its other toes,--an indication that it once used its big toe in climbing trees. We often dream of falling. Those who fell out of the trees some 50,000 years ago and were killed, of course, had no descendants (?) So those who fell and were not hurt, of course, lived, and so we are never hurt in our dreams of falling"!
While we read these feeble arguments, which the newspapers would call piffle, how can we escape the conviction that evolution is in desperate need of argument? Imagine the Copernican theory relying on such piffle for support. Is there a freak idea without a freak professor to support it?
27. TWENTY OBJECTIONS ADMITTED
Evolutionists themselves, even including Darwin, admit as many as 20 objections to his theory. Darwin states the first four and Prof. V. L. Kellogg sums up the remaining 16 on pp. 247-52 of "Readings in Evolution." Among them are:--
1. There must have been innumerable transitional forms in the formation of new species. No convincing evidence of these missing links exists.
2. Natural selection can not account for the instinct of animals such as that of the honey bee, "which has practically antic.i.p.ated the discoveries of profound mathematicians."
4. The offspring of such nearly related species as can be crossed are sterile, showing that nature discourages and in no wise encourages the formation of new species.
5. The changes resulting from the use and disuse of organs are not inherited.
6. Since Darwinism eliminates design, it is only the exploded ancient heathen doctrine of chance.
7. Variation is so slight as to be imperceptible, and, therefore, cannot account for the "survival of the fittest." If the same progressive changes do not occur generally, if not universally, in the numbers of the same species in the same period, no new species can arise. Such general changes do not occur.
8. Natural selection could not make use of initial slight changes. "What would be the advantage of the first few hairs of a mammal, or the first steps toward feathers in a bird, when these creatures were beginning to diverge from their reptilian ancestors?"
9. Even if Darwinism should explain the _survival_ of the fittest, it does not explain the _arrival_ of the fittest, which is far more important.
10. Darwin says, "I am convinced that natural selection has been the most important but not the exclusive means of modification." Many scientists think it of very little importance, and that it is not true.
11. "The fluctuating variations of Darwinism are _quant.i.tative_, or plus and minus variations; whereas, the differences between species are _qualitative_." Growth and development in one species does not produce a new species, which must be of a different kind. Miles Darden, of Tenn., was 90 inches tall, and weighed 1000 pounds, but remained a member of the human species, though he was as high and heavy as a horse. So did the giant Posius, over 10 feet tall, who lived in the days of Augustus.
12. "There is a growing skepticism on the part of biologists as to the extreme fierceness of the struggle for existence and of the consequent rigor of selection." Overproduction and shortage of s.p.a.ce and food might sometime be a factor of importance, but has it been so in the past? Has it affected the human race?
13. Darwin proposed the theory of gemmules. Prof. H. H. Newman says, "This theory was not satisfactory even to Darwin and is now only of historical interest."
14. Darwin"s subsidiary theory of s.e.xual selection has also been rejected by scientists as worthless.
In view of these and other objections, is it any wonder that Darwin"s theory has been so largely rejected by the scientific world?
And is it not amazing that self-styled "scientists" hold on to their precious theory of evolution, as if these objections had no weight?
They can not save evolution even by rejecting Darwinism.
28. SCIENTISTS CONDEMN EVOLUTION
Dr. Etheridge, famous fossilologist of the British Museum, one of the highest authorities in the world, said:--"Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts. This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views. In all this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the trans.m.u.tation of species." Is a man in that position not a credible witness?
Prof. Beale, of King"s College, London, a distinguished physiologist, said: "There is no evidence that man has descended from, or is, or was, in any way specially related to, any other organism in nature, through evolution, or by any other process. In support of all naturalistic conjectures concerning man"s origin, there is not, at this time, a _shadow of scientific evidence_."
Prof. Virchow, of Berlin, a naturalist of world wide fame, said: "The attempt to find the transition from the animal to man has ended in total failure. The middle link has not been found and never will be. Evolution is all nonsense. It can not be proved by science that man descended from the ape or from any other animal."
Prof. Fleishman, of Erlangen, who once accepted Darwinism, but after further investigation repudiated it, said: "The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it, in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but is purely the product of the imagination."
Prof. Aga.s.siz, one of the greatest scientists of any age, said: "The theory [of the trans.m.u.tation of species] is a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency.... There is not a fact known to science, tending to show that a single kind has ever been trans.m.u.ted into any other."
Dr. W. H. Thompson, former president of N. Y. Academy of Medicine, said: "The Darwinian theory is now rejected by the majority of biologists, as absurdly inadequate. It is absurd to rank man among the animals. His so called fellow animals, the primates--gorilla, orang and chimpanzee--can do nothing truly human."
Sir William Dawson, an eminent geologist, of Canada, said: "The record of the rocks is decidedly against evolutionists, especially in the abrupt appearance of new forms under specific types, and without apparent predecessors.... Paleontology furnishes no evidence as to the actual transformation of one species into another. No such case is certainly known. Nothing is known about the origin of man except what is told in Scripture."
The foremost evolutionists, Spencer, Huxley and Romanes, before their death, repudiated Darwinism. Haeckel alone supported the theory and that by forged evidence.