DARWIN VINDICATED.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1061, 12 April 1879, Page 2

DARWIN VINDICATED.

From a reprint of a lecture given by Professor Williamson iv Wakefield, | England, one of the series of Gilchrist Science Lectures, upon the subject " Life iv the earliest ages of the world," we make the following extract, m which the' lecturer gives his opinion of Charles Darwin : — " We find thero are many circumstances m the natural woi Id which briug us to the conclusion that much connected with the origin of tbe forms of life is capable of explanation, and here I have to deal at once with that great problem that has been brought before us of late years by one of the noblest — one of the most honest of intellects — I mean that of my friend Charles Darwin (applause). lam not going to vindicate Charles Darwin — Charles Darwin needs no vindication— (hear, hear—" the blood of Douglas can protect itself"— (applause)— bot I do want to guard some of our friends who do not know Charles Darwin, who do nob know what he has done, arid how he has gone about the doing of it, from supposiug ho ia what tjoajp

peoplo are so fond of calling him — " a dreamy enthusiast." If there have ever been m the history of science men who have proceeded more cautiously than others from step to step, by a patience of investigation and persevering labors, such as have never been surpassed by any pains-taking clerk m any one of our great manufactories, he stands at the head of the men who have worked m lhat wr.y — (ap plause). No one unfamiliar with i his labors can have any idea of the minute research carried on year after year, not only by himself, but with the aid of his admirable family ; only tbose who are familiar with what is going^ on behind the scenes can form any conception of the amount of toil day and night that the conclusions of Charles Darwiu have involved, and of which they aro the legitimate outcome. Charles Darwin says that one form, of animal and vegetable lifo has been developed out of another, and m this r way he goes back and back and back until be comes to a point where the first forms of life make their appearance, upon the earth. But what then? Are we to suppose that these forms gathered themselves together out a few particles of dust, or are wo to believe m what is now termed "spontaneous generation 1 ?" As most of you are well aware, Dr Bastian and some others are endeavoring* to convince us of this, bnt looking at it as one indifferent and unpledged, I am bound to cast m my lot with Tyndall ancl Huxley, and the large body of distinguished men who most emphatically say that the doctrine of spontaneous generation has not a leg to stand upon — (cheers). If that be true —as I most empeatically believe — what follows 1 Supposing every form of life that now exists upon the earth, from the tropics to the poles, and from the east to the west, all these endlessly multiplied forms of plants and animals m the air, on the land and m lhe sea, to be really developed by natural agencies out of one iittlt germ of life that somehow or other found its way upon our globe, what follows % What sort of a germ must tlut have been to have such powers lodged within it? It must have contait.t-d withiu itself potentially all these marvellous things that now chart-cfrri-e "the wide-spread living world, it must h*ve contained all tho~e endless modifications, or at all events the mateiials out of which they were capable of growing; it has contained these, too, m such a shape that they needed no helping hand, no guiding machinery j they developed m themselves by virtue of their own inherent property, and if anyone m this, room will point out to me any miracle more wondrous than such a miracle as that — if any one will poiut out to me one single indication m the material world that signified the grandeur and the power, and the foreknowledge and forethought of a Divine Being more emphatically than the creation of such a germ so marvellousy endowed, I should like to hear his illus ration of that higher power — (applause.) I know none. Thus, if it be true, as the men I have quoted assert, tbat no life is or can be produced or developed upon the earth txceptfrom pre-exiating life, Materialism ceases to have a mere existence — I mean the gross form of Materialism, J don't mean the more refined Materialism of Huxley and Tyndall, that is altogether a different thing — but the grdss Materialism has no pLice, because that one littie germ of life had to be. brought into being by a Power on whicb Materialism is silent — which Materialism cannot recognise, and that Power must have been something which m itself possessed life, and yet which, was m earth— (applause). We are then driven to the conclusion— l think honestly driven — that, even supposing evolution to be true, there is no one single thing m connection with it that need militate against — I was going to say the prejudices or beliefs of any person m this room. It is not only' compatible with the conception of design m its most definite form ; not only compatible, ,as the Duke of Argyle has shown, with the admission and. recognition of a Desigeier, but I thoroughly agree with tbe Duke of Argyle, when he says that it is the union of the conception of Design, and consequently of a Designer, with the conception of evolution, that gives us the grandest scheme of the nature and origin of life, and yet a scheme that is perfectly compatible witb our most revered beliefs."