Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/186

182 by experts who come hundreds of miles to testify that they can reconcile evolution, with its ancestor in the jungle, with man made by God in His image, and put here for purposes as a part of the divine plan. No, we are not going to settle that question here, and I think we ought to confine ourselves to the law and to the evidence that can be admitted in accordance with the law. Your court is an office of this state, and we who represent the state as counsel ave officers of the state, and we cannot humiliate the great state of Tennessee by admitting for a moment that people can come from anywhere and protest against the enforcement of this state's laws on the ground that it does not conform with their ideas, or because it banishes from our schools a thing that they believe in and think ought to be taught in spite of the protest of those who employ the teacher and pay him his salary.

The facts are simple, the case is plain, and if those gentlemen want to enter upon a larger field of educational work on the subject of evolution, let us get through with this case and then convene a mock court for it will deserve the title of mock court if its purpose is to banish from the hearts of the people the Word of God as revealed. (Great applausce.)

The Court—We will take a short recess.

The Court—Col. Darrow, did you say you had a statement you wanted to make.make? [sic]

Mr. Darrow—I want to read what I said. I shan't include an argument.

The Court—There is no objection, colonel.

Mr. Darrow—I shan't include argument; I don't think I have the right. Following what Mr. Bryan said—(Commotion in courtroom near judge's stand.)

Court Officer—Just a picture machine fallen over.

Mr. Darrow—Following what he used in a paragraph explanatory of it that I want to quote:

"Now, I do not want to be misunderstood about this. Even for the sake of saving the lives of my clients, I do not want to be dishonest, and tell the court something I do not honestly think in this case. I do not believe that the universities are to blame, I do not think they should be held responsible. I do think, however, that they are too large, and that they should keep a closer watch, if possible, upon the individual. But you cannot destroy thought because, forsooth, some brain may be deranged by thought. It is the duty of the university, as I conceive it, to be the great storehouse of the wisdom of the ages, and to let students go there, and learn, and choose. I have no doubt but that it has meant the death of many; that we cannot help. Every changed idea in the world has had its consequences. Every new religions doctrine has created its victims. Every new philosophy has caused suffering and death. Every new machine has carved up men while it served the world. No railroad can be built without the destruction of human life. No great building can be erected but that unfortunate workmen fall to the earth and die. No great movement that does not bear is toll of life and death; no great ideal but does good and harm, and we cannot stop because it may do harm.

In connection with Nietzsche, he was not connected with a university at all; he was a disciple of the doctrine of the superman.

W. J. Bryan—I want to show that Nietzsche did praise Darwin. He put him as one of the three great men of his century. He put Napoleon first, because Napoleon had made war respectable. And he put Darwin among the three great men, his supermen were merely the logical outgrowth of the survival of the fitestfittest [sic] with will and power, the only natural, logical outcome of evolution. And Nietzsche, himself, became an atheist following that doctrine, and became insane, and his father and