Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/181

Rh The Court—Well, hypothesis.

Mr. Bryan—The legislature paid evolution a higher honor than it deserves. Evolution is not a theory, but a hypothesis. Huxley said it could not raise to the dignity of a theory until they found some species that had developed according to the hypothesis, and at that time ,Huxley'stime, Huxley's [sic] time, there had never been found a single species, the origin of which could be traced to another species. Darwin himself said he thought it was strange that with two or three million species they had not been able to find one that they could trace to another. About three years ago, Bateson, of London, who came all the way to Toronto at the invitation of the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences— which, if the gentlemen will brace themselves for a moment, I will say I am a member of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science—they invited Mr. Bateson to come over and speak to them on evolution, and he came, and his speech on evolution was printed in Science magazine, and Science is the organ of the society and I suppose is the outstanding organ of science in this country, and I bought a copy so that if any of the learned counsel for the plaintiff had not had the pleasure of reading Bateson's speech that they could regale themselves during the odd hours. And Bateson told those people after having taken up every effort that had been made to show the origin of species and find it, he declared that every one had failed—every one—every one. And it is true today; never have they traced one single species to any other, and that is why it was that this so-called expert stated that while the fact of evolution, they think, is established, that the various theories of how it come about, that every theory has failed, and today there is not a scientist in all the world who can trace one single species to any other, and yet they call us ignoramouses and bigots because we do not throw away our Bible and accept it as proved that out of two or three millianmillion [sic] species not a one is traceable to another. And they say that evolution is a fact when they cannot prove that one species came from another, and if there is such a thing, all species must have come, commencing as they say, commencing in that one lonely cell down there in the bottom of the ocean that just evolved and evolved until it got to be a man. And they cannot find a single species that came from another, and yet they demand that we allow them to teach this stuff to our children, that they may come home with their imaginary family tree and scoff at their mother's and father's Bible.

Now, my friends, I want you to know that they not only have no proof, but they cannot find the beginning. I suppose this distinguished scholar who came here shamed them all by his number of degrees—he did not shame me, for I have more than he has, but I can understand how my friends felt when he unrolled degree after degree. Did he tell you where life began? Did he tell you that back of all these that there was a God? Not a word about it. Did he tell you how life began? Not a word; and not one of them can tell you how life began. The atheists say it came some way without a God; the agnostics say it came in some way, they know not whether with a God or not. And the Christian evolutionists say we come away back there somewhere, but they do not know how far back—they do not give you the beginning—not that gentleman that tried to qualify as an expert; he did not tell you how life began. He did not tell you whether it began with God or how. No, they take up life as a mystery that nobody can explain, and they want you to let them commence there and ask no questions. They want to come in with their little padded up evolution that commences with nothing and ends nowhere. They do not dare to tell you that it ended with God. They come here with this bunch of stuff that they call evolution, that they tell you that everybody believes