Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/177

Rh and nobody knew it better than Mr. Scopes himself. It doesn't matter anything about who ordered these books—the law supercedes all boards of education for the legislature is the supreme court on this subject from which there is no appeal. What does this law teach, my friends? We have little—what is the Morgan boy's first name?

A Voice—Howard.

Mr. Bryan—Little Howard Morgan—and, your honor, that boy is going to make a great lawyer some day, I didn't realize it until I saw how a 14-year-old boy understood the subject so much better than a distinguished lawyer who attempted to quiz him. The little boy understood what he was talking about and to my surprise the attorney'sattorneys [sic] didn't seem to catch the significance of the theory of evolution and the thought—and I'm sure he wouldn't have said it if he hadn't had thought it—he thought that little boy was talking about the individuals coming up from one cell. That wouldn't be evolution—that is growth, and one trouble about evolution is that it has been used in so many different ways that people are confused about it, but I am not surprised that the gentleman from New York—Mr. Hays, was confused, the National Education association even is confused, for if you noticed the other day they had a meeting in Indianapolis and it was said that they were going to tell Tennessee where to head in. We had several flaming advance notices of how the ignorance and bigotry of Tennessee was to be scored by the educational association—the teachers of the United States. Well, during the early days we would have flaming announcements of what was going to be done and then we had a very mild report. The chairman of the committee on resolutions reported that there would be no resolution passed—no, they were not going to say a word. Why? Well, there were so many different kinds of evolution or so many definitions of evolution that if they made a general statement it would be useless and if they went into detail it would excite controversy. (Laughter in the courtroom.) No wonder the gentleman from New York was not able to distinguish by just hearing it once, between the evolution of life that began in the ocean away down in the bottom and evolved up through animals bigger and bigger, until finally they got a land animal some way and then when it got on the land where it had a firmer footing it kept on evolving more and more and then finally man was the climax. That little boy could understand that and I wonder if the lawyers cannot understand it by this time. (Laughter in the courtroom.) That is evolution and that is what he taught. Not the growth of an individual from one cell, but the growth of all life from one cell and while I am on this point I might call attention to another thing that the distinguished lawyer who spoke this morning—Mr. Hays, said. He quotes, I think, from Linnaeus, if I am not mistaken, I may not be as familiar with these scientific experts as he is, but I know some of them even besides those already brought here and Linnaeus I think was the one he referred to who gave us the classification and put man among the primates. Am I correct? Was it Linnaeus? And the monkeys were also among the primates, and he says if he taught that man came from a monkey he didn't violate the law in this state, because the monkey is in the same class of primates with man.

Mr. Hays—No, I didn't say that. I beg your pardon.

Mr. Bryan—What did you say?

Mr. Hays—I said the term order of animals was a scientific term and that they were in the same order and that the words should have been the words you used. They are of a different class, but they are of the same order.

Mr. Bryan—Then are there ranks in an order or all one rank?

Mr. Hays—No, there are various ranks in the order. They should have used your words, should have