No one could possibly, in a brief paper, do the subject of evolution
full justice. It is a matter of great importance to our lost and undone
race. It lies near to every human heart, and exercises a wonderful
influence over our impulses and our ultimate success or failure. When
we pause to consider the opaque and fathomless ignorance of the
great masses of our fellow men on the subject of evolution, it is not
surprising that crime is rather on the increase, and that thousands of
our race are annually filling drunkard's graves, with no other visible
means of support, while multitudes of enlightened human beings are at
the same time obtaining a livelihood by meeting with felons' dooms.
These I would ask in all seriousness and in a tone of voice that would
melt the stoniest heart: "Why in creation do you do it?" The time is
rapidly approaching when there will be two or three felons for each
doom. I am sure that within the next fifty years, and perhaps sooner
even than that, instead of handing out these dooms to Tom, Dick and
Harry, as formerly, every applicant for a felon's doom will have to pass
through a competitive examination, as he should do.
It will be the same with those who desire to fill drunkards' graves.
The time is almost here when all positions of profit and trust will
be carefully and judiciously handed out, and those who do not fit
themselves for those positions will be left in the lurch, wherever that
may be.
It is with this fact glaring me in the face that I have consented to
appear before you today and lay bare the whole hypothesis, history rise
and fall, modifications, anatomy, physiology and geology of evolution.
It is for this that I have pored over such works as Huxley, Herbert
Spencer, Moses in the bulrushes, Anaxagoras, Lucretius and Hoyle. It is
for the purpose of advancing the cause of common humanity and to jerk
the rising generation out of barbarism into the dazzling effulgence of
clashing intellects and fermenting brains that I have sought the works
of Pythagoras, Democritus and Epluribus. Whenever I could find any book
that bore upon the subject of evolution, and could borrow it, I have
done so while others slept.
That is a matter which rarely enters into the minds of those who go
easily and carelessly through life. Even the general superintendent of
the Academy of Science and Pugilism here in Erin Prairie, the hotbed of
a free and untrammeled, robust democracy, does not stop to think of the
midnight and other kinds of oil that I have consumed in order to fill
myself full of information and to soak my porous mind with thought. Even
the O'Reilly College of this place, with its strong mental faculty, has
not informed itself fully relative to the great effort necessary before
a lecturer may speak clearly, accurately and exhaustingly of evolution.
And yet, here in this place, where education is rampant, and the idea is
patted on the back, as I may say; here in Erin Prairie, where progress
and some other sentiments are written on everything; here where I am
addressing you to-night for $2 and feed for my horse, I met a little
child with a bright and cheerful smile, who did not know that evolution
consisted in a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.
So you see that you never know where ignorance lurks. The hydra-headed
upas tree and bete noir of self-acting progress is such ignorance as
that, lurking in the very shadow of magnificent educational institutions
and hard words of great cast. Nothing can be more disagreeable to the
scientist than a bete noir. Nothing gives him greater satisfaction than
to chase it up a tree or mash it between two shingles.
For this reason, as I said, it gives me great pleasure to address you
on the subject of evolution, and to go into details in speaking of it.
I could go on for hours as I have been doing, delighting you with the
intricacies and peculiarities of evolution, but I must desist. It would
please me to do so, and you would no doubt remain patiently and listen,
but your business might suffer while you were away, and so I will close,
but I hope that anyone now within the sound of my voice, and in whose
breast a sudden hunger for more light on this great subject may have
sprung up, will feel perfectly free to call on me and ask me about it
or immerse himself in the numerous tomes that I have collected from
friends, and which relate to this matter.
In closing I wish to say that I have made no statements in this
paper relative to evolution which I am not prepared to prove; and, if
anything, I have been over-conservative. For that reason I say now, that
the person who doubts a single fact as I have given it to-night, bearing
upon the great subject of evolution, will have to do so over my dumb
remains.
And a man who will do that is no gentleman. I presume that many of
these statements will be snapped up and sharply criticised by other
theologians and many of our foremost thinkers, but they will do well to
pause before they draw me into a controversy, for I have other facts
in relation to evolution, and some personal reminiscences and family
history, which I am prepared to introduce, if necessary, together with
ideas that I have thought up myself. So I say to those who may hope to
attract notice and obtain notoriety by drawing me into a controversy,
beware. It will be to your interest to beware!