8. MAN'S MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS.
Evolution claims that all man's faculties have been derived from the brute, as was his physical frame. It is fair to say that this is met at the door by the protest of some of the greatest scientists, themselves sympathetic with Evolution.
Prof. John Fiske wrote on the origin of mind: "We can say when mind came on the scene of evolution, but we can say neither whence nor why.... It is not only inconceivable how mind should have been produced from matter, but it is inconceivable that it should have been produced from matter." (Darwinism, pp. 63, 69.) Prof. Dana has said, "The present teaching of geology is that man is not of nature's making.... Independently of such evidences, man's high reason, his unsatisfied longings, aspirations, his free will, all afford the fullest assurance that he owes his existence to the special act of the Infinite Being whose image he bears." (Geologic Story, p. 290.)
Prof. George H. Howison writes on this theme: "To make evolution the ground of the existence of mind in man, is destructive to the reality of the human person and therefore, of the entire world of moral good and of unqualified truth." (Limits of Evolution, p. 6.) Lord Kelvin, the most eminent living scientist, wrote in a letter to the London Times, "Every action of human free will is a miracle to physical and chemical and mathematical science."
9. LANGUAGE.
Evolution has long tried to create an argument for the derivation of man's speech from the cries of animals. This is met however by the philologist with positive denial. Prof. Max Mueller says: "There is one barrier which no one has yet ventured to touch,—the barrier of language. Language is our Rubicon and no brute will dare to cross it.... No process of Natural Selection will ever distill significant words out of the notes of birds and animals." (Lessons on the Science of Language, pp. 23, 340, 370.)
False claims have been made for the languages of savage people and ancient races. Darwin said that the people of Terra del Fuego were the lowest in the scale, so far as discovered, and their language correspondingly crude. But further investigation shows that they have 32,430 words; over twice as many as Shakespeare used. The language of some of the tribes of the Congo is described by a missionary as more complex than Greek. The history of languages shows the same want of evidence for an evolutionary origin. The oldest forms are the most complex. Modern Greek and Latin are simpler than the ancient forms. English is an improvement in this respect on the old Anglo Saxon, whose grammatical forms it has largely cast off and reduced the language to greater simplicity.
A scientist is now endeavoring to ascertain the speech of monkeys. He has ascertained that these animals have different sounds for different wants, a fact as to other creatures that he could have ascertained by a visit to the nearest poultry yard. The hen has as many calls as the monkey, and as many meanings too. Her call for food is one sound. Her cry of alarm at a passing hawk is another, and her brood perfectly understands all, and without previous education. All animals and birds, and many insects too, have sounds with meaning in them, but language is another matter.
10. PREHISTORIC MAN.
The remains of early races form an argument used by Evolution. These remains are found in many places in caves and are accompanied by tools of stone and vessels of pottery and the remains of animals. These degraded peoples are pointed to by Evolution as man in a state of development.