Whether this book shall constitute the rallying cry that shall give courage to the straggling and retreating armies of Israel; -whether it shall prove to be a work worthy to be read and circulated by all opponents of these modern scientific doctrines is not for the author to say. He may say, however, that the accomplishment of this object, in writing the book, has been his aim, and to which end he has labored with all the energy and resources at his command. Imperfectly, in many respects, the work has been done, he admits; but if singleness and intensity of purpose can condone for defects in the manner of execution, he may hope that the general tendency of his book will be in the interests of religion and true science. In the reviews which have appeared in the religious press, of the early edition, some exceptions have been taken, in noticing the part on Sound, to the personally severe criticisms of Prof. Tyndall's experiments, in which his intelligence in scientific matters is called in question. While the author sincerely thanks his reviewers for these just criticisms of his language and style, and for which he now apologizes (though he has not time, at present, to reconstruct that portion of the book), he nevertheless enjoys the consolation of finding himself in the excellent company of no less an authority than Prof. Tyndall himself, as witness his reply to Dr. Bastian on Spontaneous Generation, in which he unequivocally pronounces his opponent an ignoramus, and I think proves it. The author also enjoys, in this respect, the company of some of our most eminent divines who, in criticising the views of these same scientific authorities, do not hesitate to point out mistakes, and call things by their right names. Instance the Reply to Tyndall by Rev. Dr. McCosh, president of the College of New Jersey, from which I quote a single specimen : "Eminent as he [Tyndall] is as a scientist, there is no proof that he has studied philosophy." "He talks of Empedocles' noticing this gap in the doctrine of Democritus,' whereas every tyro in philosophy knows that Empedocles comes before Democritus." Reply to Tyndall, page 4. This reads very much like some of the severest remarks in Evolution of Sound, and for which no doubt the Doctor will follow the example here set and apologize when he comes to revise his book. My general rejection of standard scientific text-books, as unreliable authority, would seem at first sight unwarranted if not almost preposterous; yet I am indorsed in every word I have said upon that subject by no less an authority than the careful physical investigator and renowned inventor, Mr. Edison, as given in the New York Herald of Dec. 31, 1879. I quote a few of his caustic but truthful denunciations: "They [the text-books] are mostly misleading. I get mad with myself when I think I have believed what was so learnedly set out in them. There are more frouds in science than any where else. Take a whole pile of them that I can name and you will find uncertainty if not truth.. They have time and again set down eximposition in half of what they state as scientific periments as done by them, curious out-of-the-way experiments, that they never did, and upon which they have founded so-called scientific truths. I have been thrown off my track often by them, and for months at a time. You see a great name believe in it. Try the experiment yourself and you find the result altogether different. I tell you I'd rather know nothing about . and you a thing in science, nine times out of ten, than what the books would tell me-for practical purposes, for applied science, the best science, the only science, I'd rather take the thing up and go through with it myself. I'd find out more about it than any one could tell me, and I'd be sure of what I knew. That's the thing. Professor this or that will controvert you out of the books, and prove out of the books that it can't be so, though you have it right in the hollow of your hand all the time and could break his spectacles with it." Nothing severer than this, against the reliability of scientific authority, can be found in any part of this book. I will only add that should the clergy and public-spirited laity of the country, upon a careful examination of the arguments of this book, regard them as useful in driving back the now dangerous tide of evolution and materialism, I respectfully solicit their coöperation in extending the circulation of the work, as my own services have so far been given to the cause without money and without price. THE AUTHOR CHAPTER I. Progress of the present age. Theistic Evolution. Review of the Rev. Joseph Cook, Rev. Dr. CHAPTER II. The Problem of Human Life stated and discussed. All the forces of Nature claimed to be sub- to the Problem of Human Life suggested. The intangible and incorporeal vital and mental organism within CHAPTER III. Charges of Materialism and Pantheism answered. Correspondence with Rev. Dr. Barr, of Phila- CHAPTER IV. The Doctrine of freedom of the Will, and its relation to the controling influence of motives and CHAPTER V. The Wave-theory of Sound assailed, in order to weaken the force of scientific authority. Many CHAPTER VI. Sound continued. Nature of Sound, mode of Travel, penetration in Solids and Liquids, etc., dis- CHAPTER IX. Rudimentary Organs considered, and the Evolution argument based upon them shown to be er- CHAPTER X The Paleontologic and Geologic records examined. Anatomical similarities considered and CHAPTER XI. Intelligent design, on the part of a personal Creator, every where visible in Nature. Origin and considerations in favor of intelligent design, and against the possibility of Evolution. Haeckel, him- PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE. CHAPTER I. THEISTIC EVOLUTION-INTRODUCTION. [SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.] Glimpse at the marvelous progress of the present decade in scientific discovery and invention. The achievements of Ancient Greece thrown into the shade.-Gradual progress from old fashioned Atheism to Modern Materialism.—The startling announcement of Evolution in Darwin's Origin of Species. The sudden change of base by the opposers of Religion.-Darwin's theory hailed with joy by skeptics as a scientific argument against the Bible.-The dilemma of the Clergy over the scientific facts brought to light in Darwin's book.-Many of the Clergy are forced to adopt his views, with the proviso of intelligent design in the various transmutations and changes from species to species. — Theistic Evolution examined, and its unscriptural character shown.-Proofs that Rev. Joseph Cook, Rev. Dr. McCosh, and other clergymen have gone over to Evolution.-The inconsistency of trying to escape the Evolution of Man as well as of lower animals pointed out.-Joseph Cook necessarily includes man by admitting the existence of "gills" in Embryonic Infants.-Dr. McCosh's strange apology for Spontaneous Generation as not necessarily opposed to religion and a belief in the exist ence of God.-The absurdity of such a position shown.-Conflicting views of Theistic Evolutionists pointed out. Concluding appeal to the Clergy of this country. THE closing decades of the present | zles the moon. Talk and write as we may century are marked in the history of the of the progressive development and wonworld for their unexampled massing of derful achievements of Grecian intellect,revolutionary discoveries and startling the masterly culture of Athens with her events. No other equal period of historic profound statesmen and philosophers, her time has been so fraught with marvelous far-seeing military commanders and strateconceptions, profound advances in philo- gists, her electrical orators, her brilliant sophic and scientific research, and surpris- poets, her inspired artists, her studious ing mechanical inventions, since the dawn and comprehensive historians,-yet all of civilization. Even within the present this array of talent, produced by Attica, decade it may be truly said that a greater and which culminated during the two number of surprising scientific discoveries centuries of her greatest greatness and has been developed and announced than fame in the persons of her Demosthenes, in any previous interval of a century in the Aristides, Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, world's history. This progressive march Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Heroof intellect, these magnificent strides in dotus and Xenophon, is but as the titleman's mastery over Nature, these astound- page to the great volume of achievement ing revelations of the recondite resources when contrasted with the startling record of God's Universe now so rapidly unfold- of events in which the intellect of the preing themselves, indicate that man is not sent generation has figured and is now living in vain in this world of physical figuring. The glimmer of the taper bestruggle, but that intellectuality is in the comes conspicuously brilliant from the ascendant, and that the future, so far from contrast of general darkness, while a inspiring a feeling of gloom in the minds thousand electric lights of a thousand of thoughtful investigators, is bright with candle-power each would pale their inthe portents of glorious possibilities and effectual glow in the brighter glare of the triumphs, which shall outshine the past as noonday sun. A single phenomenal Dethe sun, in his superlative glory, out-daz-mosthenes in Athens or Cicero in Rome in science and philosophy which shall utterly eclipse anything the world has yet witnessed. And while we are thus observers of, and participants in, the benefits resulting to civilized society from the revolutionary mechanical and scientific discoveries which tend to our temporal advancement, making nature the servant of man, and by which his physical condition is heightened, may we not look with confident hope for scientific and philosophical discoveries in other directions, amidst this general intellectual activity, which shall lead the race to a still higher plane of moral and spiritual manhood, giving it a sublimer conception both of Nature and Nature's God? Rejecting the materialistic conclusions of the predominant philosophy of German and English scientists, which tell us that the present life is all there is of us or for us, is it not possible that the great storehouse of nature contains within its secret archives substantial records of truth yet undiscovered by man, which, when opened, shall reveal, with absolute assurance, a substantial duality of entitative being that allies us to an intelligence higher than our own, and to a conscious state of mental activity above, and independent of, our physical surroundings, as surely as our corporeal natures ally us to an earthly life and fit us for a temporal existence? could sway the multitude as a cyclone well-grounded expectancy of discoveries moves the forest, and though we now look back and wonder at such marvelous achievements, accomplished so many centuries ago, yet if ei her of those orators should now drop into our midst, with all his pristine powers, he could not stand beside a Castellar, and would be but an intellectual and oratorical pigmy by the side of our own Sumners, Clays, Websters and Calhouns, whose names are legion all over this land, no one towering sufficiently above his compeers to produce a marked sensation a state of things attributable to the ubiquitous printing press, the great educator of the masses. Take the best words ever uttered by a Cicero or the best lines ever penned by a Homer, aided by the embellishing powers of the finest translation in existence, and they will bear no comparison to the words and stanzas of our own statesmen and poets read every day in our newspapers, till evidences of the prevalence of intellectual greatness are as plentiful as autumn leaves. Distance lends enchantment to the view no less in estimating oratorical power and artistic genius than in the appreciation of coast and mountain scenery as it recedes from our sight. We go into ecstasy over a massive but ridiculous pile of stones called a pyramid, because it is four thous and years old, while we scarcely notice a modern fountain or monument of the most exquisite design and finish, made by some one we know. In like manner, but to a less degree, we are more influenced by that which is foreign or comes from a distance than by that which even surpasses it when produced right at our own door. The foreign singer, the foreign lecturer, the foreign scientific treatise, the foreign merchandise, even, can become the furor of the hour, when in fact we have superior articles in the same line at home. But I digress from the theme of this introduction. I have hinted at the progressive strides of our own immediate time, in discovery and invention, as a warning note against surprise, let what will be announced as possible in the future or as already achieved. The age in which we live seems to accelerate its own progressive development by the momentum it receives in each new advance. Where it is to end we know not; but the practical observer, with mind and eye upon the alert, gazes into the near future with a While new discoveries, in the production of light for our physical illumination, are announced in rapid succession, is there no moral and spiritual light that can be made to flash upon our pathway from that laboratory of Nature whence comes electricity, to show us in all this obscurity of philosophic darkness,-in all this tangled maze of metaphysical materialism, the dim outlines, even, of the other bank of the river? The writer believes there is such a light yet to be generated by the dynamic power of scientific investigation and applied philosophic research; and it is with the view of gaining this new light, and of establishing this broad assurance of a brighter, and higher, and better hereafter, on scientific grounds, that this book is written. In the following chapters some effort will be made to find out if science, philosophy, reason, and the common logic of life, do not tell us, in unmistakable words, that we are here for something grander |