LECTURE BY DR. MORRIS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8451, 30 May 1907, Page 5

LECTURE BY DR. MORRIS.

DARWIN AND HAECKEL CRITICISED. Dr. R. N. Morris, M.D., LL.D., delivered a lecture in the Town Hall, last evening. Its title was, "Why, on scientific grounds, I cannot accept Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection." The Mayor (Mr J. M. Coradine) occupied the chair, and there was a large attendance. 5 The lecture was.listened to with interest. Dr. Morris said he disclaimed any intention of disparaging the work of men of science such as Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, and Haeckel. If he held that the theory with which their names were associated was scientifically unsound, he was warranted in setting j forth the reasons why he rejected it. In the first place, he read and called special attention to the canons of evolution, as laid down by Darwin, as they would require to be constantly borne in mind. Further,, Darwin had so fully accepted Haeckel's position that he felt warranted in classing the two together. He first dealt with the principle generally accepted by evolutionists, that in the development of any given embryo from the cell was pictured the evolution of the species. The alleged rudimentary gills—certain folds from which the lower jaw, tongue, and ear-structures were ultimately developed—were always I cited in proof. He denied that these ' were gill openjngs. In the first place, they were not openings at all, but closed. Secondly, he showed, | from Haeckel's own pictures, that they were the same in the embryo of the fish as in that of the mammal. But the fish had no ancestor with gills—and in the fish they did not develop into gills, but into the same structures as in the mammals. Regarding the supposed primary germ from which terrestrial life originated —Darwin admitted a plurality; Haeckel insisted that there could have been but one. Haeckel said it must have been homogeneous; Spencer, on the .other hand, said that no living cell was homogeneous— that homogeneity was a test by which to distirgu'sh between non-living and living. Ha3ckel said that the original germ must necessarily have been of the simple3t possible form and structure ; Darwin, that it must have been complex to an unimaginable degree. And this primordial germ, after all, was hypothetical—a guess. Haeckel, who declared he had found a rudimentary spinal column in a mollusk, the sea-squirt, did not infer thence that the mollusk had descended from a vertebrate—yet such would necessarily follow if he applied the same rules of interpretation as in other cases. It was commonly held that the cetaceans were descended from land-mammals, yet this inverted the whole theory. Haeckel went so far as to say that not whales and porpoises only, but certain fishes had a like descent. This was in direct opposition to all the Darwinian canons. The proceedings closed with a vote of thanks to the Chairman.

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