THE EVOLUTION OF MAN.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 860, 5 July 1910, Page 6

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN.

LECTURE BY MR, JOSEPH M'CABE. An audience that filled the Concert Chamber at the Town Hall to its utmost limits assembled last evening to hear II r. Joseph M'Gabe lecture on "The Evolution of Man." The address was followed by the audience with evident interest, and was punctuated by frequent applause. The lecturer said tliat although fewpeople were now altogether unacquainted witli the theory of evolutiou, he would postulate no knowledge of the subject on rlie part of his audience, but would trace the development of life from its earliest beginnings. Modern science looked back to a time when there canre living things in the waters of the primitive earth. How they cam® there was a question that as yet gave ground only for speculation. Professor Armstrong, one of the mosr eminent living authorities on evolution, hod suggested thai, f.tio existence of life might bo the Tesnlt of a series of lucky accidents. Into these speculations he would not enter, but would trace the development of human life as it slowly, and by gradual changes, emerged from earlier forms. In its earliest manifestation, life was confined to the waters of the _ primitive ocean. There existed myriads of living tilings, anion" them ancestors of. the fish. The latter irere forced by circumstances to develop into the reptile and later into the mammal. An interesting and important question was: what impelled them in the derclopmeat towards higher forms? The main clue w;;s the variation of climate, the alternation of cold and tropical periods in the evolution of the earth. -I'lli--f hwi been the great stimulus in the elevation ol lil'o from lotv to higher forms. There were still, Mr. M'Cabe remarked, some people who found difficulty in accepting the facts of evolution, but prejudice was rapidly giving way to pressure of evidence. The .Dean of Westminster, one of the most eminent clerics of the day, had invited his followers to incorporate a belief in evolution in their faith. Mail as he existed to-day could not be understood save as the descendant of a long linn of animal ancestors. Man was universally rew/gnised as the most pcrfoct thing in the universe, but from the scientific point of view the human liody was a museum of antiquities. The human body contained innumerable organs and appendages, the presence of which could bo explained only on the assumption that they were shrunken relics of features that were of service to remote ancestors of man. From this foundation, and assisted by an excellent series of lantern slides, illustrating the text of his discourse, the lecturer traced the gradual evolutiou of animal life through successive stages, culminating at i length in Iho appearance of primitive! man. As a whole the,lecture was an admirably lucid exposition of h theme of meat interest. i