IS DARWIN RIGHT? OR, THE ORIGIN OF MAN. BY WILLIAM DENTON, AUTHOR OF OUR PLANET," SOUL OF THINGS," GENESIS AND GEOLOGY," ETC. MRS. E. M. F. DENTON, PUBLISHER, WELLESLEY, MASS. In this volume I present to the public substantially what I have been presenting in my lectures for more than twenty-five years, giving here, however, greater prominence to the spiritual origin of man; for the question of man's natural origin is generally decided in the affirmative, and the great question now is as to the means by which the result was naturally produced. The writings of Lyell taught me in youth that the present condition. of our planet is the result, not of miraculous achievement a few thousand years ago, but of the operation of natural causes during many millions of years. The "Vestiges of Creation" first led me to believe in man's natural origin; and my own investigations in mesmerism, spiritualism, and psychometry, showed me the defectiveness of the theories advanced by Darwin, Huxley, and others of the natural selection school. Nobler men do not live than some of them are in many respects; but when they seek to account for the existence of all organic forms, and entirely ignore the spiritual side of the universe, infinitely its most important side, their theories 3 cannot be otherwise than most radically defective. Scientific men run in ruts, as theologians so generally do : hence the popularity of Darwinism to-day. But, with a knowledge of the spiritual in the universe and in man, there will come a great modification of the views of naturalists regarding the origin of organic forms. This work is written for the general reading public, and is made as plain as possible, that the average reader may understand its arguments, which I shall be very glad to see overthrown if they are not in agreement with absolute truth. Twenty-two years ago I had a discussion with Mr. Garfield, now president-elect, on the subject of man's origin, many false reports of which have been published in some of his biographies, and in campaign documents in various Republican papers. In some of these I was represented as an atheist; one who was completely discomfited, but who sought during the debate to inveigle his opponent into the discussion of subjects not related to the matter in debate. Every statement is utterly false. In that debate I took the affirmative of the following proposition: “Man, animals, and vegetables are the product of spontaneous generation and progressive development; and there is no evidence that there was any direct creative act on this planet." Mr. Garfield took the negative, which required him to present evidence of direct creative action: this he neither did, nor attempted to do. If Mr. Garfield then believed in man's miraculous origin, as given in the book from which he took the texts for his sermons, he did not choose to defend it, for reasons best known to himself; if he did not believe it, he stood before the public in a very false position. Nearly or quite every argument used by me in the twenty speeches made in that debate are given in this volume, to which Mr. Garfield was utterly unable satisfactorily to reply, and to which, I venture to say, neither he nor his friends can now reply. I trust the time will come in our Republic when it will not be considered necessary to lie, either to vilify or glorify a candidate for its presidency. WILLIAM DENTON. WELLESLEY, MASS., Dec. 5, 1880. |