Loyal to the Word NOTE: The entire book, Man, His Origin and Destiny, is a long treatise against the theory of evolution. Rather than reproduce the entire book, Loyal to the Word felt it appropriate to take only a chapter from it as a representation of the entire work. The following is Chapter Seven of Man, His Origin and Destiny, and is entitled “the hypothesis of organic evolution – 1”
FROM whence came Man? What is his destiny? In the revelations of the Lord we are taught that man is the offspring of God. His destiny is to gain immortality through the atonement of Jesus Christ and having passed through death and the resurrection, to live forever. If he will be obedient to all of the commandments of the Lord and abide in his covenants he will gain eternal life, which is the greatest gift of God. Eternal life means to become a son of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ, receiving the fulness of the Father's kingdom. It is written:
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
And he [Adam] heard a voice out of heaven, saying: Thou art baptized with fire, and with the Holy Ghost. This is the record of the Father, and the Son, from henceforth and forever;
And thou art after the order of him who was without beginning of days or end of years, from all eternity to all eternity.
Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons. Amen.
And these are the words of Jesus after his resurrection when speaking to Mary:
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (italics mine.)
To all who have faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and who believe in the efficacy of the atonement, these are glorious principles. We have reached the point, however, in the history of the world, when many of the learned who are steeped in the philosophies of the world, reject all of this and in their place have substituted another doctrine and way of life. In the nineteenth century there were many good Christian people who believed in the scriptures as far as they understood them. They accepted the atonement of Jesus Christ. Their ministers preached that he was the Redeemer and accepted the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Today these doctrines are looked upon as being antiquated, and those believing them are looked upon by many scientists as ignorant of the beginning of things and are guilty of accepting the false philosophies, myths and legends coming from the ancient "Chaldeans and Babylonians." Then came these days of so-called scientific research to discover the origin of man, for the Bible revelations failed to satisfy those who were no longer guided by the Light of Christ, and the teachings became prevalent that the scriptures were filled with "Christian errors." Dr. Andrew D. White in his relentless determination to destroy man's faith in the Bible stories of creation and all things miraculous, declared that "Biblical theology continued to spin its own webs out of its own bowels, and all the lesser theological flies continued to be entangled in them; yet here and there stronger thinkers broke loose from this entanglement and helped somewhat to disentangle others."
So now, in the twentieth century, the doctrines of the critics of the Bible and the teachings of the organic evolutionists, have gained the ascendency in the scientific world. It is true that in former years we lived in a Christian nation, the fact persists that now many Christian ministers, so-called, have been caught in the web of modernism and organic evolution and have rejected the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; and they, like the Christians in the days of Rome, have mingled their religious views with these modern (pagan) teachings. Because of the influence of destructive criticism and these theories of the descent of man, many ministers have rejected the fall of Adam, the atonement of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of the dead. In fact they have come to the point where they have discarded the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that he is the Only Begotten Son of God. Their Christianity, filled with abundant errors before, has sunk to a lower level. These advocates of modernism and evolutionary teachings, glory in the fact that their influence has helped to eliminate from Christianity, the "dogma of Adam's fall," and the "legendary husks and rinds of our sacred books." One day, when they come to the judgment, they will have to give an accounting for all this mischief they have done. It may be imagined how they will feel, when they are forced to confront the thousands who have been turned away from faith in God and acceptance of his divine plan of salvation, because these enemies of truth were eager to destroy the scriptures and the mission of Jesus Christ. If great joy will be felt by the individual who has, through his humble effort, saved one soul, then how great must be the remorse of these learned men when they discover that their efforts have been the means of destroying thousands of souls?
This brings us to the discussion of what I believe to be the most pernicious doctrine ever entering the mind of man: the theory that man evolved from the lower forms of life. For its source we must go beyond the activities and research of mortal man to the author of evil, who has been an enemy of truth from the beginning before the earth was formed. This doctrine is not new in this modern world; it is merely its pernicious application that has been developed during this and the preceding century. It was natural for people in former times to think that life developed spontaneously. Did they not see what appeared to them countless forms of life spontaneously appearing? Such life appeared in cheese, in stagnant pools, decayed matter or most anything that stood long enough in the warmth of the sun. Even men who professed Christian convictions accepted this to be the fact. Crocodiles were generated from the slime of the
Now, the remarkable fact—one of the most striking in the history of science is that the time honored belief in spontaneous generation should have been attacked, and attacked with apparent success, just at the very time when it would otherwise have begun to assume real philosophical importance. For ages it had been accepted, taken as a matter of course, and not regarded as having any particular bearing upon the supreme question. Then there came the time when this belief would have been an all-important link, without which the chain of evolution could not be completed, a link without which we were left to contemplate a perfect chain of inorganic evolution—the history of life upon the earth, with an abyss between the two that could not be bridged, for how came life where was no life? A series of experiments were made—experiments in which, strikingly enough, some of the greatest evolutionists of the day took a leading part, and these seemed to upset, just when it was most wanted by themselves for the establishment of their new doctrine, the belief which had gone without question for so many ages.
Now, some may be inclined to wonder how it should be that certain pioneers of the new doctrine of evolution, such as Tyndall and Huxley, should devote themselves with such persistence and labor and force to the overthrow of a doctrine which was so necessary for the complete establishment of their own case—so much so, that when they had overthrown it, they found themselves, as regards their own doctrine of evolution, placed in a difficulty from which they did not live to emerge. . . .
It is well worth noting that the common doctrine of spontaneous generation was always held in reference to organic materials, such as the slime of the
This conclusion is of great importance in the history of modern thought, and it was proclaimed with much rejoicing and vigor as a great achievement of science, whilst some of the chief advocates seemed at times to forget the extreme awkwardness of the inferences which had to be made from it. The doctrine may be stated in Latin in the form of the familiar dogma, Omne vivum ex. vivo: Every living thing from a living thing. . . . For every creature, microbe, or mammoth or man, we must trace back in imagination a series of living ancestors, different perhaps in various characters, but always living. This series must be traced back and back and back until . . .?
And there the difficulty arose.
Notwithstanding the great discovery of Pasteur, Darwin and his followers were not retarded in their search to find the beginning of life and to prove that all things have developed from spontaneous life. This question has never been answered successfully other than the account in the scriptures: If spontaneous generation cannot be created now, how could it be possible several million or billion years ago? Conditions, according to the teachings of science, are more favorable now than they possibly could have been in the far distant past. To get a beginning these advocates must assume some starting point, notwithstanding there is no evidence that will support it. All evidence points to the contrary. Now a word in relation to this assumed starting point.
According to one scientist:
The doctrine explains that the animal kingdom, past and present, is comparable to a highly developed tree. The trunk is the original amoeba or something similar to it.
According to Charles Darwin:
The most ancient progenitors in the
From this beginning Mr. Darwin argues that while it is a very long step, it is "a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality."
It is hardly necessary to go into detail about the evolutionary theory of descent, more than to say, it teaches that from this small beginning has sprung all living creatures on the face of the earth. We will let one of the advocates of this theory state the case:
Organic evolution is the branch of evolution that deals with the development of plant and animal life. According to its teachings all plants and animals have come up through a long line of successive changes from a common ancestry.
It makes little difference whether the evolutionist decides on the amoeba or on the larvae of an ascidian for his beginning, the insuperable difficulties are just the same. It requires a vast stretch of the imagination, far beyond the realms of reason, for one to accept such a theory as this. Let us suppose for the sake of argument, that the first speck of life was an amoeba. We can suppose—for that is in keeping with the entire doctrine of organic evolution, for its entire structure is based on supposition, and cannot be based on anything else—so, we will suppose, that back several millions or billions of years—no one was there to watch the process by which this speck of life came spontaneously into existence—the amoeba suddenly appeared and multiplied, as the amoeba will do, and after millions of years, it, or one of its descendants began to develop fins, then a head and then a tail and after several more millions of years it became a fish, or a tadpole, or a brachiopod, or a trilobite, or a snail, even a worm—it makes no difference which, one guess is as good as another—and becoming tired of the water it came out upon the land, leaving its companions to develop into acquatic animals, while it dug itself in the soil and became a plant, a fern, a rose bush or a tree. Then another, discovering that the land was pleasant, also came forth from the water and became a frog, a toad, a lizard or a snake and in course of time its descendant became a tiger, a lion, a bear, an elephant, dinosaur or a little timid lamb; perhaps it took to the air as a dove, a robin, a hawk or an eagle. Why go any farther? Does it not all sound extremely ridiculous? Well, so it is! Yet it is this kind of rubbish that is put forth apparently in all seriousness. Books are written about it; lectures are given in class rooms, from pulpits and platforms, and thousands of well meaning people say they believe it! Then again the question arises: Each of these animals had to have a companion, and we find ourselves in a quandary to discover just why and how both males and females came into existence, both in the animal world and among trees and other vegetation. So we find ourselves floundering in the depths of an unfathomable hypothesis about which no one has ever been able to do more than to make an uncertain guess. Others of this amoeba's descendants became a bee, a wasp or a grasshopper, a gnat or a fly. Among these wonderful mutations there also came forth a monkey, then a baboon, a gorilla and then man!
My dear friends, cannot you see how utterly foolish it all is? Why is it that thousands of intelligent looking human beings are willing to accept these stupid teachings? Frankly it is because Satan has deceived them and they love darkness rather than the light. Surely the day has come prophesied by Paul and written in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians:
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Ch. 2:8-12. (My italics).
Permit me to quote a few paragraphs from the writings of Hon. William Jennings Bryan:
Having given
Science has rendered invaluable service to society; her achievements are innumerable—and the hypothesis of scientists should be carefully examined and their arguments fairly weighed, but the scientist cannot compel acceptance of any argument he advances, except as, judged upon its merits, it is convincing. Man is infinitely more than science; science, as well as the Sabbath, was made for man. It must be remembered, also, that not all sciences are of equal importance. . . .
And yet I read only a few weeks ago, on page 124, of a little book recently issued by a prominent
"Man has grown up in this universe gradually developing his powers and functions as responses to his environment. If he has eyes, so the biologists assure us, it is because light waves played upon the skin and eyes came out in answer; if he has ears it is because the air waves were there first and the ears came out to hear. Man never yet, according to the evolutionist, has developed any power save as a reality called it into being. There would be no fins if there were no water, no wings, if there were no air, no legs if there were no land."
You see I only called your attention to forty percent of the absurdities; he speaks of eyes, ears, fins, wings, and legs—five. I only called attention to eyes and legs—two. The evolutionist guesses himself away from God, but he only makes matters worse. How long did the "light waves" have to play on the skin before the eyes came out? The evolutionist is very deliberate; he is long on time. He would certainly give the eye thousands of years, if not millions, in which to develop; but how could he be sure that the light waves played all the time in one place or played in the same place generation after generation until the development was complete? And why did the light waves quit playing when two eyes were perfected? Why did they not keep on playing until there were eyes all over the body? Why do they not play today, so that we may see eyes in process of development? And if the light waves created the eyes, why did they not create them strong enough to bear the light? Why did the light waves make eyes and then make eye-lids to keep the light out of the eyes?
And so with ears. They must have gone in "to hear," instead of out, and wasn't it lucky that they happened to go in on opposite sides of the head instead of cate-cornered or at random? Is it not easier to believe in a God who can make the eye, the ear, the fin, the wing, and the leg, as well as the light, the sound, the air, the water and the land?
There is such an abundance of ludicrous material that it is hard to resist the temptation to continue illustrations indefinitely, but a few more will be sufficient in order that you may be prepared to ridicule these pseudo-scientists who come to you with guesses instead of facts, let me give you three recent bits of evolutionary lore.
Last November I was passing through
And here is another: "We often dream of falling. Those who fell out of the trees some fifty thousand years ago and were killed, of course, had no descendants. So those who fell and were not hurt, of course, lived, and so we are never hurt in our dreams of fallings." Of course, if we were actually descended from the inhabitants of trees, it would seem quite likely that we descended from those that were not killed in falling. But they must have been badly frightened if the impression made upon their feeble minds could have lasted for fifty thousand years and still be vivid enough to scare us.
If the Bible said anything so idiotic as these guessers put forth in the name of science, scientists would have a great time ridiculing the sacred pages, but men who scoff at the recorded interpretation of dreams by Joseph and Daniel seem to be able to swallow the amusing interpretations offered by the
A few months ago the Sunday School Times quoted a professor in an Illinois University as saying that the great day in history was the day when a water puppy crawled up on the land and, deciding to be a land animal, became man's progenitor. If these scientific speculators can agree upon the day they will probably insist on our abandoning Washington's birthday, the Fourth of July, and even Christmas, in order to join with the whole world in celebrating "Water Puppy Day."
We have all read such silly things in supposedly scientific articles. I remember one such article in a book written by an advocate of organic evolution who attached letters as symbols following his name indicating that he held scholastic degrees. He declared that the reason a man when drowning will clutch at a straw was because his ape ancestors swung from limb to limb in trees and for the same reason boys delighted to swing on trapeze and horizontal bars and climb trees; and that the reason why babies crawled before they learned to walk is because in the far distant past their ancestors went on all fours. Surely an hypothesis is hard put to it to have to resort to such foolish things as evidence. However, Mr. Charles Darwin, the king-bolt of the entire group, was guilty of saying things just as foolish as any of these. Here are a few examples. I quote from
Rudiments of various muscles have been observed in many parts of the human body; and not a few muscles, which are regularly present in some of the lower animals can occasionally be detected in man in a greatly reduced condition. Every one must have noticed the power which many animals, especially horses, possess of moving and twitching their skin; and this is effected by the panniculus carnosus. Remnants of this muscle in an efficient state are found in various parts of our bodies; for instance the muscle of the forehead, by which the eyebrows are raised. The platysma myoides, which are well developed on the neck, belong to this system. (Pages 12-13.)
According to this argument, all of us who are able to wrinkle our foreheads and raise our eyebrows give evidence that we are related to the horse. A wonderful stretch of the imagination is it not? Here is another from page 19:
I am informed by Sir James Paget that often several members of a family have a few hairs in their eyebrows much longer than the others; so that even this slight peculiarity seems to be inherited. These hairs, too, seem to have their representatives; for in the chimpanzee, and in certain species of Macacus, there are scattered hairs of considerable length rising from the naked skin above the eyes, and corresponding to our eyebrows; similar long hairs project from the hairy covering of the superciliary ridges in some baboons. (Page 19.)
Here again we have the argument that all of us—and as President Heber J. Grant at times said facetiously "of whom I am which"—who have a few hairs in our eyebrows that refuse to remain uniformly of the same length, give evidence that we have descended from the chimpanzee or baboon. Let us carry it further. Because we have a nose, eyes and a mouth, an ear and a tongue, therefore we are related to every other creature that possesses these same "rudiments" and therefore we have the same common ancestor. Wonderful reasoning!
Again:
With respect to development, we can clearly understand, on the principle of variations supervening at a rather late embryonic period, and being inherited at a corresponding period, how it is that the embryos of wonderfully different forms should still retain, more or less perfectly, the structure of their common progenitor. No other explanation has ever been given of the marvelous fact that the embryos of a man, dog, seal, bat, reptile, etc., can at first hardly be distinguished from each other. In order to understand the existence of rudimentary organs, we have only to suppose—
(And may I add that throughout this work and in all of this author's works, there is nothing but speculation and supposition. Not one single fact linking man to any other form of life.)
that a former progenitor possessed the parts in question in a perfect state, and under changed habits of life they became greatly reduced, either from simple disuse, or through the natural selection of those individuals which were least encumbered with a superfluous part, aided by the other means previously indicated. (Pages 24-25.)
And so we find Mr. Darwin's works filled with such comparisons which get us nowhere for there are no means in existence by which this descent can be shown or proved. No one denies that there are comparisons, conditions that are similar to be found in living beings. The fish, the fowl, the beast and man, all have blood, the life-giving medium by which they exist. They have internal organs, muscles and bones; they eat, they smell, they see and they hear. The Almighty who created them built them, naturally, in many parts on a similar plan. Why should it be otherwise? But there is nothing in any of these things that in the slightest indicates or proves a common ancestry. It is quite evident that these advocates are hard put to it, when they have to resort to the embryos of "man, dog, seal, bat, reptile, etc.," but as far as history of man goes back, the human offspring has always come into the world, as has every other creature, "after his kind." Mr. Darwin states that "Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals." "In its early stages it can hardly be distinguished from other animals," of the vertebrate kingdom. He assumes that all vertebrates constitute and belong to one kingdom. So this confusing story goes on. Following the lead of
The advocates of this doctrine have sent forth expeditions to all parts of the earth seeking fossils from the rocks and bowels of the earth. More particularly, in later years, these researches have gone forth with the hopeful desire of finding in the fossils evidences of creatures formerly existing in all the stages from the simple vertebrates up through continuous processions till they could come to homo sapiens, or modern man. These researches carried on with the greatest zeal, have not resulted in any discoveries to prove the theory of evolution. These disappointments have forced the advocates to resort to deception—deception of the most reprehensible character. In the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, in the "Hall of the Age of Man" are found a number of busts prepared under the direction of Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn which are supposed to be "restorations" showing the descent of man through ape ancestors. The professor who "restored" these "missing links," J. H. McGregor, certainly had a vivid imagination. Pictures of these busts of the "Trinil Ape Man," the "Neanderthal Man" and the "Cro-Magnon Man," are to be found in guide series No. 52. Professor Osborne describes these three as follows: "These three restorations of pre-historic man form a progressive series, from left to right, is evident not only by the general form and the appearance of relative intelligence appreciated by the most casual observer, but specially by definite anatomical characters such as increase prominence of the chin, reduction of the eyebrow ridges, reduction of the prominence of the lower face as a whole, increased size of skull and of brain capacity (brain capacity of the three races from left to right: 858-900cc.; 1408cc.; 1550-1800cc.)"
The history in relation to the creation of these three busts is rather interesting and should be generally known. The story of the first, the substance out of which the bust of the Trinil Ape-Man was constructed consists of a small section of a brain pan, two molar teeth and a piece of thigh bone gathered by a Dutch military surgeon named Eugene Dubois. He was a friend of Ernest Haeckel, notorious for his deception practices, not only on the public, but also on his scientific brethren. Mr. Dubois found a small piece of the upper part of a skull and a molar tooth on the left bank of the
Nevertheless this great stretch was made and from these a "reconstructed" man, known in some scientific circles as Pithecanthropus Erectus. The first of these bones were found in the year 1891. In the eagerness of these researches to prove the descent of man from the apes, it became a simple matter to "reconstruct" such a creature as an ape-man out of the meagre bones notwithstanding the distance which separated them when they were discovered. These scientists have constructed a skull representing a very low order and have estimated the brain capacity as being only 858-900cc. And from this meagre showing they have developed an entire race.
Professor George McCready Price speaking of this imaginary being says in his The New Geology:
The average human brain has a capacity of about 49 ounces, and no normal brain is less than 30 ounces. The Java skull has been variously pronounced as that of an idiot, that of a sub-man or an ape-man, or that of a large Hylobates, or gibbon.
When these remains were first brought to
This opinion that these bones really represent a gibbon is concurred in by some of the foremost scientists. For example, Richard Hertwig says: "The opinion that is most probably correct is that the fragments belonged to an anthropomorphic ape of extraordinary size and an abnormal cranial capacity, and with a relatively large brain."
Only the large size seems to stand in the way of anyone's regarding it as the remains of an ape. Macnamara, after careful study of the specimen, declared that Pithecanthropus was a true ape of rather extraordinary size. He says, "The cranium of the average adult male chimpanzee and the Java cranium are so closely related that I believe them to belong to the same family of animals, that is, to the true apes."
Dr. W. H. Ballou in an article in the North American Review (April 1922) expresses doubt upon the bona fides of the discoverer of these Java remains because of the fact that Dr. Dubois sealed up these remains shortly following the discovery, with other "finds" and has never allowed any scientist to examine them.
Alfred Watterson McCann says:
Professor Osborn's own witnesses, Klaatsch, Schwalbe, and Alsberg declare that the Trinil Ape-Man not only does not belong to the pedigree of man but that it does belong to the pedigree not of any extinct ape or fossil ape, but to the pedigree of the modern apes, wherefore, "He ceases to be a witness in support of the theory of man's descent from beasts." Professor Osborne admits that no living ape belongs to the pedigree of man. He also admits that no fossil ape belongs to the pedigree of man. His witnesses Schwalbe and Klaatsch admit that the Trinil monster does not belong to the pedigree of the modern apes, but as modern man and modern apes are admitted to have no relation to each other, Professor Osborne can't bring in the Trinil monster without bringing in the modern apes, and precisely that he confesses he cannot do.
The "Neanderthal Man," second in the list, according to the manufactured busts, shows a little more resemblance to modern man. The story of this wonderful "discovery" is just as interesting, and just as misleading as Pithecanthropus, or the Trinil Ape-Man. In August 1856, two laborers who were digging in a small cave at the entrance of the Neanderthal gorge, near
"Regarding the type of skull here being dealt with, Virchow unhesitatingly pronounced it a pathologic specimen; and we must remember that Virchow was the founder of the science of pathology. He further declared that he had often seen upon the streets men with just such shaped skulls as that of the Neanderthal Man. Others, however, have strongly emphasized the prominent ridges above the eyes, and the very long, almost flat form of the head."
Alfred Watterson McCann speaking of the receding forehead of the Neanderthal skull says:
All lovers of the theatre who admired the intellectual achievements of Sir Henry Irving marveled over his very low forehead which sloped markedly backward, though not so much so as the forehead of Marquis Lafayette of revolutionary fame. The writer possesses an autographed photograph given to him in 1900 by Sir Henry himself, and is not surprised that the materialistic evolutionist completely ignore its profile in their comparative studies. The Henry Irving skull in some respects would confound them. One could distort its description in support of any weird theory under discussion.
He further says:
Describing the original Neanderthal skull-cap, Dr. Hrdlicka says, page 30, "The Most Ancient Skeletal Remains of Man,"—"The forehead is very low and also slopes markedly backward, nevertheless it presents a moderately defined convexity. The sagittal region is oval from side to side, much like that in man of today." The description could be forced to fit Sir Henry's brain pan with respect to the outlines of the sagittal median curve. It would fit Sir Lafayette's brain pan nicely. And Rudyard Kipling's!
The internal capacity of this skull was fixed very low, for obvious reasons, by Professor Schaffhausen. He wanted to get it, like the Piltdown skull of a later date, as close to the brute as possible, so he declared that it had a cc. capacity of 1033. The highest form of ape stops at 600 cc.
Even Professor Huxley was forced to correct this estimate by giving it a cc. capacity of 1230. Professor Schwalbe confirmed the Huxley measurements by giving it a cc. capacity of 1234, which is very close to the cranial capacity of the modern school teacher's skull.
The imaginary Cro-Magnon man is not a bad looking fellow. Of course he could not be because in his day, according to the theory, man had advanced to a respectable stage of intelligence with a brain capacity of 1550-1880 cc. He had learned to make fire, to manufacture crude implements of various kinds and weapons with which to defend himself and family. Three skeletons were found at Cro-Magnon,
Perhaps a few words should be said about the "Piltdown Man." About the year 1910, Mr. Charles Dawson walking along a country road close to Piltdown Common, in
Later investigations revealed that the tooth was not a lower tooth, but an upper tooth coming from the left side of some jaw. Further investigation convinced some of the scientists that these bones did not belong to the same individual, and in Nature, (November 13, 1913, p. 319) Professor Waterson published a scientific paper in which he said:
To refer the jaw bone and the cranium of the Piltdown remains to the same individual would be exactly equivalent to articulating a chimpanzee foot with the bones of a human thigh and leg.
The outlines of the Piltdown jaw are identical with those of a chimpanzee jaw. The molar teeth (of the jaw) are identical with the ape form. The cranial fragments on the other hand are in practically all their details essentially human.
Professor D. W. Matthew of the
Regarding the Piltdown specimens we have at last reached a position that is untenable. The cranium is human, as was recognized by all in the beginning. On the other hand, the mandible and the canine tooth are those of a fossil chimpanzee. This means that in place of Eoanthropus Dawsoni we have two individuals belonging to different genera.
In Current History (October 1927) an article appeared under the caption: Darwinism Reaffirmed By Latest Evidence. This was written by Watson Davis:
Science is at its best when the British Association for the Advancement of Science meets. Not alone
In 1860, at an
The "recent discoveries" referred to by Mr. Davis have reference to the "finding" of the notorious Piltdown Man. In defense of his position Sir Arthur Keith had this to say:
Our searches have shown us that man's evolution has not proceeded in this orderly manner, [That is, through a single race, but through "broken up races, and numerous separate species."] In some extinct races, while one part of the body has moved forward another part has lagged behind. Let me illustrate this point, because it is important. We now know that, as Darwin sat in his study at Down, there lay hidden at Piltdown, in Sussex, not thirty miles distant from him, sealed up in a bed of gravel, a fossil human skull, and jaw. In 1912, thirty years after
We may confidently presume that this individual was representative of the people who inhabited
This "latest evidence" was the "Piltdown Man" which Sir Arthur Keith presents as an infallable evidence of man's descent from apes. He and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, according to Sir Arthur's statement, declare that the jaw definitely belong to the skull and this therefore affirms the claims of Mr. Darwin, without any doubt. It is too bad that Sir Arthur Keith could not see the discoveries recently made throwing further light on the [in]famous Piltdown Man. In the press dispatches of
"
"
"A card in the case explained that this plaster cast assembly represented the remains, locked in a safe nearby, of the famous Piltdown man, an early Briton who strolled the barren south some 600,000 years ago.
"Scientists disclosed Saturday that someone had made a monkey out of them. After a new test with modern techniques, they declared the skull an 'elaborate hoax.'
"The Piltdown cranium is genuine, the scientists said, but the head's jaw and molars are those of a modern ape, stained and filed down to simulate the fossil specimens of early man.
"The faking has 'no parallel' in the history of palaeontology, two anatomy professors of
"A British lawyer, Charles Dawson, found the preice age brain-box in a gravel pit on his estate at Piltdown,
"A blow from a pickaxe had broken the bone, splintering it many times. Dawson, an antiquarian, by hobby, began rummaging in the pit and found the other pieces. Eminent scientists excitedly pronounced the find the oldest ever of its kind. The lower jaw was found later in the gravel pit. Scientists linked it with the cranium.
"Modern fluorine test has now revealed the jaw bone had been stained with bichromate of potash and iron and the teeth artificially pared down. The jaw and teeth, the scientists say, must have been 'planted' in the gravel pit but they emphasized that the brain case is still regarded as a genuine fossil."
The following day other remarks appeared in the press, and one geologist, Alvan Marston, who had long claimed the Piltdown jaw came from an ape, said: "The blame for this Piltdown hoax does not lie at the door of Mr. Dawson. He was meticulous and honest."
Perhaps the Trinil Ape-Man, if the bones could be examined, might reveal something just as startling, but Dr. Dubois locked them up and they have not been subject to later examination.
There have been numerous other "finds" from which "primitive men" have been manufactured, such as the La Quina Lady, the Heidelberg Man, the Moustier Man, the Pekin Man, and others needless to mention. The fact remains that they have all been manufactured from a few scattered fragments of bones with no certain evidence that these fragments were parts of the same skeletal remains. However the work has gone on with a zeal unworthy of a true scientific cause, and these scattered fragments have been palmed off on the world with a brazen disregard of the facts that is appalling. Most of the bones thus discovered have been found in positions many yards apart and there is no proper evidence that they belonged to the same individual. Moreover, the bones gathered from isolated points, or deposits, have been taken as a criterion and in imagination made to represent an entire race of imaginary people. It has been shown in some instances that some of the bones thus gathered are not of human origin. Even the experts have disagreed. Like the imaginary ancestor of the horse, the complete remains of these specimens which are placed on exhibition have never been discovered, but from a few scattered bones gathered under most uncertain conditions have been used to deceive the public. I repeat that if the doctrine of organic evolution were based in truth, there would be no need to search the world over for the remains of "missing links." The world would be full of them. They would be walking our streets, and as William Jennings Bryan has said, the hypothesis of evolution "would find support on every foot of the earth's surface." As it is, the advocates of this pernicious theory go to the most ridiculous lengths and resort to the most absurd conclusions based on imaginary discoveries and fables. They are possessed with imaginary minds and when the facts fail them, as the facts always do, they can create species and groups and supply missing parts which in their imaginations disappeared millions of years ago.
It is unnecessary to continue this phase of the subject more than to say that in all of these "finds" the wish has been father to the thought, so overly anxious have these "discoverers" been to find some connecting links between man and the lower animals that would give evidence of a common origin. These "missing links" have not been forthcoming and the plotters have been forced to resort to fraud and deception to bolster up their futile attempts to prove a Satan-inspired cause, the real purpose being to destroy faith in God. Verily the words of our Lord are true and made manifest in this last dispensation with confirmation in the actions of men: "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deed should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."
(Joseph Fielding Smith, Man, His Origin and Destiny [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954], 130 - 157.)