The student must decide whether he will base his study of the heavens and the earth—the study of astronomy, geography, and geology, as well as zoology, and botany indirectly—on this hypothesis, which, we are told, “forms the foundation of all current speculations upon the subject;” or whether he will turn from these reasonable explanations for the existence of things, and take the plain Word of truth, which says, “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made;” “He spake and it was; he commanded and it stood fast,” together with the explanation as given in Genesis and elsewhere in the Scriptures.
Faith and finite reason face each other; the education of the world takes reason; Christian education is based upon faith in God’s Word. Which will develop character? Why is it that modern science-study does not lead to God?—In the evolutionary teaching of the nebular hypothesis you have one answer.
Evolution as taught in zoology
Picking up an ordinary text-book in zoology, we read: “The earliest member of the series directly leading up to the horse was eohippus, an older eocene form about as large as a fox, which had four well-developed toes and the rudiments of a fifth on each forefoot, and three toes behind. In later eocene beds appeared an animal of similar size, but with only four toes in front and three behind. In newer beds, i.e., lower miocene, are found the remains of mesohippus, which was as large as a sheep and had three toes and the splint of another in each forefoot.... The succeeding forms were still more horse-like.”[186] Next they find a donkey-like animal, and later “a true equus, as large as the existing horse, appears just above the horizon, and the series is complete.”[187]
If the horse tribe has evolved from a fox-like animal, it is little wonder that men trace their origin to the monkey tribe; but those who wish God’s character, take by faith the statement that “in the image of God created He him.”
Such theories form the basis for the generally adopted classification of the entire vegetable and animal worlds. Christian education demands new text-books, based upon the truths of God’s Word.
Dana on origin of species
From Dana, the recognized authority on geology, the following sentences are quoted: “Life commenced among plants, in seaweeds; and it ended in palms, oaks, elms, the orange, rose, etc. It commenced among animals in lingulæ (mollusks standing on a stem like a plant), crinoids, worms, and trilobites, and probably earlier in the simple systemless protozoans; it ended in man.” For this development, he says, “Time is long.”
In a paragraph on “Progress Always the Gradual Unfolding of a System,” are the words: “There were higher and lower species appearing through all the ages, but the successive populations were still, in their general range, of higher and higher grade; and thus the progress was ever upward. The type or plan of vegetation, and the four grand types or plans of animal life, the radiate, molluscan, articulate, and vertebrate, were each displayed under multitudes of tribes and species, rising in rank with the progress of time.... Its progress should be, as zoological history attests, a development, an unfolding, an evolution.”
In the study of this evolution in animal life, he says, “The progress in the system of life is a progress in cephalization,” and he gives several illustrations, as the passage from tadpole to frog; from lobster to crab, from worm to insect, etc. Such teachers speak always of the evolution from the lower to the higher forms of life, but leave retrogression entirely out of their reckoning.