EVOLUTION.

Evening Star, Issue 4214, 29 August 1876, Page 4

EVOLUTION.

To IheEditor.

•Bm,;—Perhaps you will be kind enough (jjbHmgh the medium of your paper to allow fto to make a few observations on the speech S Captain Hutton at the Otago Institute on e 22nd itist. on the theory of Evolution. ¥hat gentleman is reported to have said rt that the progressive theory held good as fat as the lower animals were concerned, and that it was simply prejudice to say that ft did nokapply to man as well." "Who adnata it, or rather who furnishes any proof of ft t Darwin does, not show one instance of Tan inferior animal germenating into another ; In fact, at one point Captain Hutton's ""argument , appears to me to be very Weak. After asserting that man evolved from the monkey, ho exhibits the ovum of a <&©£ t© show how nearly it resembled that of tho human being. That* appears to be about very illogically. What has «ho log to do with it ? It should have been fho ovum of a monkey, which Would have ttado some show; bnt it would not have Sored the case, as there are manv men very :e monkeys. But it does not follow that

they descended from them. To discuss the question whether the theory applies to the jaind as well as the body, before it is proved €hal it does apply to tho body, wouldbewave &t time. Nature's great register^—the great *tene book —has been well searched, ana not ft single .ontry justifying the theory has been found. .-Surely, if the doctrine were true, considering the millions of cases that must feayo occurred, some memoranda would have boon found. Could the Evolutionist only show me something approaching to the figure of a chain, although broken in many jwaees, my mind would view the question fory differently to what it does now. Can the Evolutionists point out any such evidence |n geology? Captain- Hutton says there i 3 • ho scientific evidence of the separate •reatlon of the orders. Why there

shey ara separate entitles, and there is •Bofcaniota of fact to show that they generated from each other. Why should a hard fagb be .given up to make way for a sheofy that stands upon imagination Anly, Captain Hutton says that, if Uho erolyement theory were given np, shere Is nothing to substitute in its place. This style of arguing is funny. He has no right to ignore the separate creation theory when He can't prove his own, or disprove the other. There tho creatures stand, and he osnnot show any connection between them oither before or after birth, Captsin Hutton £oes on to say that if the evolvement theory were accepted it would establish the claims *f the lower animals to the same protection from ornelty as man himself, and if su:\h humanitarian teachings were degrading, he «r&s content to bo degraded. It is good to be willing te suffer for truth's sake ; but does not Captain 'l'ufcfcpn see that he lowors the Evolutionists to the level of cannibals, inasmuch as they do, aud must devour their own genera, which our incisors and molars fully prove. Perhaps it will be as well to ehange the name to " cannibals : " it would tj« more concise.—l am, &c, Tyro. 3>nnedin, August 29.