South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2409, 6 December 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1880.

It will doubtless interest tiie students of science all over the world to learn that in such a remote and apparently benighted corner as Otago, the cxplora tinns of such giant minds as that of the venerable Dr Darwin, have aroused a spirit of strong enthusiasm. An association of scientists in Southland recently forwarded their congratulations to the gifted author of the “ Origin of Species” on the fact that Ids great conception had attained its twenty-first anniversary, and, like an old potato in soft soil, had taken firm root in the mental pabulum of the world’s greatest philosophers. The example of Southland has been emulated by a no less pretentious body than the Council of the Otago Institute. In order that the value of the compliment, which we publish in another column, may be estimated, we may state that the Council in question represents such practical scientific pursuits as cabinet-making, the renovation of decayed garments, mat-tress-making, bird-stuffing, and soapboiling ; that it meets at indefinite periods in a large concrete cellar immediately beneath the hones of a family of moas in the Otago Museum ; and that on such occasions the members are treated to learned harangues on such subjects as the flexibility of greyhounds’ tails and the peculiarities of structure that distinguish the hills of West Coast parrots from the jaws of a Dunedin calunati’s horse. This explanation is necessary in order to show how absolutely and literally true Is that portion of the Council’s address which refers to “ the field of our own labors ” being limited. It is limited to the refuse of the boiling-down establishments. But the circumstance that the ramifications of the lecturers of the Otago Institute are limited to stuffed parrots and horses’ heads, does not apparently prevent the members of that body of profound thinkers from viewing from a .distance, as Professor Proctor views the sun, the grand Darwinian theory of evolution and natural selection.

These Otago scientists, for whose labors and researches wt have preserved a feeling of intense respect ever since we attended a memorable lecture on the muscular development of the jaws of a cabman’s horse, pay the following tribute to the venerable and worthy Doctor;— “ We are glad to think that you have “ lived to see the almost universal ac- “ ceptance of the great doctrine which “ it has been the work of your life to “ establish. It is is hardly an exaggera- “ tion to say that every important “ botanical or zoological discovery of “ the last 21 years—particularly in “ the departments of embryology and “ paheontology—has tended to fill up “ some gap in the evidence you had “ originally collected, and to make “ evolution no longer a theory, but an “ established doctrine of science.” The feelings of Dr Darwin when he peruses this somewhat extraordinary address may easily be conjectured. The sorrowful man from Columbus while awaiting the departure of the train asked “ Have you a private room in which I can sit and cry ?” The author of the “ Origin of Species” will stand in need of an apartment in which to laugh. The assurance of the Tooley street tailors of the Otago Museum that the gaps “ in the departments of embryology and paheontology” are being rapidly filled up, and that “ evolution is no longer a theory, but an established doctrine of science” is too ludicrous to be received with calmness. If the author of the “ Origin of Species” has not set the Thames on fire, or made humanity claim alliance with the brutes that perish, or converted sacred writ into a writ of error, he has at least awakened within the breasts of these Otagonian philosophers a feeling of awe and reverence and veneration for the lower forms of life, and like the exhausted village youth amid the execrable music of the village band, or the fly that was being rolled up for a currant, he will be able to “ die happy.” Henceforth, we presume, the weaklings of the Otago Institute will abstain from catching flies or pinning beetles. A clue regard for “ natural selection ” will prevent them from indulging in the sanguinary freaks of their boyhood, when they dined on periwinkles and extracted honey from the vagrant bee. When they gaze upon the chattering

baboon, overpowered by a feeling of reverence for the illustration of antiquity, they will drop on their knees exclaiming, “ Pardon, oh, illustrious ancestor, the cruelty that has doomed thee to a life of solitude in the woods or imprisonment among the haunts of thy unfilial progeny.” When the world has been scientifically converted, and the “ doctrine of science ” propounded by Dr Darwin and abjectly worshipped by the Council of the Otago Institute is universally accepted, there will he no need for a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The cabman’s horse will no longer be starved or driven, the donkey and his driver will change places, the monkey will turn the organ handle and the organist will carry the hat. Such a millennial may seem extraordinary, hut according to the Council of the Otago Institute it is approaching rapidly. Unfortunately there is one side of the evolution theory, or rather doctrine, which neither Ur Darwin nor the Council of the Otago Institute seem to have considered. To every picture there is a back—if the tide flows, it must also ebb. This is a great natural law. The profound scientists who weild the bones of dead horses and the skins of parrots in the city of Dunedin have only looked on the progressive side of evolution. The doctrine, we admit, is interesting, though not very very fair or fascinating. But if it has a progressive side may it not also possess at retrogressive side. If man is simply a highly developed monkey, if the orang-outang and gorilla mark his upward stages, what about his downward course? Having attained the zenith of Ids development, what next ? Early growth and vigor are followed by decay, old age follows youth, and the first childhood is more pleasant than the second. If man, in the times in which Dr Darwin and the Council of the Otago Institute believe, was a monkey of the most degraded kind, what sort of an ape will he become when he is going down the hill of posterity ? Will the fable of the Kilkenny cats be verified and will he finish up with nothing but the caudal appendage ? Here is a profound subject for scientific enquiry and debate. We commend it to Dr Darwin and the Council of the Otago Institute ?