Evolution | Page 6

are similar to permanent conditions in some of the lower forms in the same group. Evolutionists believe that these forms were actually possessed by the ancestors of these animals in the course of their evolution. They hold that the changes which take place in the embryos epitomize the series of changes through which the ancestral forms passed. Because the embryos of some four-footed animals have gill-slits, this is pointed out as evidence that land animals are evolved from fishes.
c) Geographical Distribution. In geological time, natural barriers have sprung up which separated the species which have since developed. In this way the existence of marsupials (pouched animals--kangaroo, oppossum) [tr. note: sic] on certain limited areas, the limitation of certain plants to certain islands, etc., are explained.
d) Classification. The so-called Tree of Life. All living forms can be arranged in a diagram called the Tree of Life. The Tree has a short trunk, indicating common origin of the living from the non-living, and is divided into two large trunks representing plants and animals respectively. "From each of these start large branches representing classes, the larger branches giving off smaller branches representing families, and so on with smaller and smaller branches representing orders and genera, until we come to leaves as representing species, the height of the branch from which they are hanging indicating their place in the growth of the great life-tree." (Clodd, "Story of Creation," p. 103.) There is an exact gradation from the lowest life forms to the highest. First such simple forms as the sponges and corals, then, through the worms, crabs, oysters, and snail to the fish, and thence through amphibia, reptiles, beasts of prey, ungulates (hoofed animals) and apes to man. Evolutionists say that in this gradation of life we see illustrated the evolution of complex from simple forms.
The Descent of Man.
According to the evolutionary hypothesis man is related to the animal kingdom by descent from a brute ancestor, who, apelike in appearance, is the common ancestor of ape and man. The evidence of such derivation is believed to be:
i. Rudiments of structure which were useful in some brute ancestor. There remain in man a few elementary muscles for twitching the skin, as in the forehead; and it is pointed out that many animals have such muscles at the present time, and it is argued that the ability of some men to move the whole scalp points to the existence of muscles with such function in our brute ancestors. The vermiform appendix in man is termed rudimentary, being but a remnant of the much longer and more complex appendix of the same nature in living animals today.
2. Embryonic Development. Because the young of all animals resemble one another while in the embryo stage, and since such resemblances are found in man, it is concluded that the evolution of man from some related animal form must be accepted as the most reasonable explanation.
3. Some diseases are common to animals and man (tuberculosis, cholera, hydrophobia, etc.).
4. The similarity in structure of man and the apes.
5. The fossil remains of man. Certain skulls and leg bones have been found which are said to represent forms higher than the ape and lower than man. On the strength of such finds it is said that the "missing link" has now been supplied.
The Nebular Hypothesis.
The Frenchman de La Place (1827) first promulgated in modern terminology the theory once held by Greek philosophers, that the earth and the system in which it is a member originated from a primitive cosmic-vapor or universal fire-mist filling all space with infinitely small atoms. In this homogeneous mass motion originated, resulting in a concentration at one point. This condensation resulted in heat and light. The planetary system at first consisted of a huge gas-ball which gradually cooled, contracting into a molten mass which under the influence of centrifugal force began to rotate. This rotation became more rapid as the mass condensed, throwing off the planets, in which the process was repeated (the moons being cast off), until the earth became sufficiently cool to sustain life.
The Origin of Life.
When asked about the origin of life on earth, the evolutionists generally reply that this is not a question for science but for philosophy to answer. However, the question comes with such insistent force that the biologist finds himself constrained to offer some explanation of the origin of the simplest plant and animal life after the globe had, according to the hypothesis, sufficiently cooled to present areas in which life might arise. Necessarily, the assumption must be that life was generated out of lifeless matter. Huxley says: "If the hypothesis of evolution be true, living matter must have arisen from not-living matter, for by the hypothesis, the condition of the globe was at one time such that living matter could not