PREFACE.

The theory of Evolution has been so popularized in the name of science, that many who know little about science accept it, and risk their souls' salvation on the word of the lecturer, or professor, or newspaper advocating it. This is merely superstition. It is scientific superstition, not one whit more respectable than religious superstition. And in this case it is dangerous; for we shall see that the theory of evolution is not scientific. It is not founded on facts. Its premises do not warrant the conclusions drawn from them.

If the tree is to be

judged by its fruits, it is poisonous. These things I propose to show in these pages. Taking the evolutionists on their own grounds-scientific foundation facts-I propose to show that the theory is unfounded, absurd, and degrading. I shall take the theory from its acknowledged prophets; and shall adduce my conflicting facts from scientists of acknowledged reputation. As the work is designed for the people, the illustrations will be as popular in style as the subject will permit.

The theory of Evolution is a cosmogony, or scheme of worldbuilding, of world-wide comprehensiveness. It begins with the stars, and descends to the worms; nor does it exclude man and his affairs. Indeed, it proposes to include all human affairs-personal, social, political, and religious--in its domain. It is monarch of all it surveys; dethroning alike Moses and Mohammed, Kaiser and Calvin, Pontiff and President, by the supreme law of the Survival of the Fittest, applied unflinchingly alike to mammoths and ministers, and carried out by the most

diverse agencies from the glacial period to the age of nitroglycerine. So we must prepare for a journey to the heavens above, and to the earth beneath, and to the waters under the earth.

The logical beginning of the theory is necessarily at the beginning of our universe. For though denying a beginning in words, yet practically its advocates must begin somewhere. They have chosen to begin with the stars and the heavens. We must follow them there, and see what sort of a business they make of star-building. Then we may inspect their progress in earth-building. After we have seen the astronomical and geological blunders of our builders, we will cease to be surprised at their mistakes in stocking their farm with mongrel breeds of cattle. And then we may drop in for a neighborly call, and see how they succeed in raising their little monkeys, and the peculiarities of their house-keeping. Their politics and religion will form interesting subjects of consideration. And we may conclude by a comparison of this new theory as a rule of life, and a basis of hope in death, with the old facts of Christianity.

On examining the theory of Evolution we observe that it naturally divides itself into five great divisions:

1. The Astronomical, or the Development of the Stars.

2. The Geological, or the Development of our Globe.

3. The Zoological, or the Development of Animals.

4. The Human, or the Development of Mankind in Society. 5. The Religious, or the Development of Christianity.

In this order the subject is treated in this work. The attempt is made to demonstrate the theory of evolution to be unscientific, irrational, and profane; and in conclusion, Christianity is proved to be a solidly established inductive science, capable of demonstration by experiment.

THE ERRORS OF EVOLUTION.

THE NEBULAR THEORY.

THE SCIENCE OF

WORLD-MAKING.

The science of world-making has great attractions for the human mind. Man seems thus to prove his kindred to the Great Creator. The wisest and most learned have hoped to show how the universe was created, leaving all succeeding generations to laugh at their preposterous attempts. The Chinese cosmogonist shows us Pwangku chiseling out the granite heavens. The Greek introduces us to the primeval chaos, and the gods reducing it to order. The Hindoo shows us Brahm hatching the sacred. egg, containing the seeds of all things, and producing worlds, and men, and beasts from its fruitful sphere. We justly ridicule these dreams as mere empty notions, incompatible with the science of our nineteenth century; but in what respect are our scientific cosmogonies less superstitious or absurd? You may say, those cosmogonies were the product of ignorance of the structure of the universe. Does any one pretend to know its structure now? Though we know a little more than our fathers, we also know that this advance in knowledge bears no proportion to the infinite ignorance which could presume, on the strength of our childish science, to attempt to describe the construction of an unknown universe. Nay,

the heathen cosmogonies were generally less impossible and absurd in principle than the fashionable cosmogony of modern science; for they at least assumed a power sufficient for the work-a living person, possessed of will, and energy, and intelligence, and so, competent to make and mould this beautiful cosmos into order, and to devise the laws of its nature, and see them obeyed. It was reserved for modern atheists to excite the laughter of the heavens by a plan of creation more ridiculous than Brahm's egg-an egg which laid and hatched itself without any Brahm-the Nebular Theory.

In our own day a class of men inspired by an utter dislike of the idea of God, set themselves with wonderful earnestness to devise some plan for the origination of the universe without the intervention of a Creator. Indeed from the dawn of history an atheist occasionally has proposed to account for the existence of the world by asserting the eternity of matter, in motion, in a state of chaos, and for its present arrangement by chance. But when the discoveries of Newton opened the door for the discovery of law and order and regulated motion, in the most distant corners of the universe, and, at the same time, chemistry began to show the existence of law and order in the construction of grains of sand and drops of water, by weight and measure, this old atheistic hypothesis of the formation of the world by chance was exploded. It was seen that there was no more chance in the running of the planets than in the running of the trains of a railway; that in fact they were far better regulated than those usually are.

The construction of cosmogonies became a fashionable amusement in the seventeenth century, and it was considered quite an easy operation. The celebrated Descartes. said that he should think it a small thing to show how the world is constructed, if he could not also show that