If reason came not from God, but from evolution, should we not expect it well developed in evolutionary man, since for the last 3,000,000 years he must have been 95 to 100 per cent, normal. If we grant the estimate of 500,000,000 years, he would have been 99.4% normal for the last 3,000,000 years. Would we not expect in that time a world of inventions and discoveries, even surpassing those of the last 100 years? The Chinese claim a multitude of inventions and a race so nearly normal as ape-men, ought to have invented language, writing, printing, the telegraph, phonograph, the wireless, the radio, television, and even greater wonders than in our age.
There is no trace of intelligence in man in all the 3,000,000 years, prior to Adam.
We should have many works excelling Homer’s Iliad, Vergil’s Aeneid, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. We have no trace of a road, or a bridge, or a monument, like the pyramids. That no race of intelligent creatures ever lived prior to Adam is proven by lack of affirmative evidence. If it be true, as Romanes declared, that the power of abstract reason in all the species was only equal to that of a child 15 months old, then each species would possess less than one millionth of that.
39. CONSCIENCE
If the origin of the mental faculties can not be accounted for by evolution, much less can the moral faculty, the religious nature and spirituality be accounted for.
The most confirmed evolutionist will not claim that the tree or the vine or the rose, or perhaps any animal, has a conscience. If, however, conscience is a growth or development, why should it not exist in some measure in both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms? Has any brute any idea of right or wrong? Has a hog any idea of right or wrong, of justice or injustice? What animal has ever shown regret for a wrong, or approval of right in others? If conscience is a development within the reach of every species, many of the million or more, no doubt, would have shown some conscience long ago.
But if man developed conscience, why have not our near relatives of the monkey family developed a conscience? They had the same chance as man. Why should man have a conscience, and monkeys none?
Why is there no trace of conscience in the animal or vegetable kingdom? Because it is the gift of God.
What sign of regret, repentance, or remorse, do we find in the cat or the dog, the rat or the hog? If a bull gores a sheep to death, does he express regret? Is a horse sorry if he crushes to death a child or a chicken under his hoof? Can any animal be sorry for stealing food from another? Will it take any steps to undo the wrong?
Man, according to evolution, is a creature of environment. He is a victim of brute impulse. He has no conscience, no free will, he can commit no crime. Killing is not murder. It is not sin. Man can not be responsible. Without conscience, a victim of circumstances, rushed on into crime, sin, and injustice, responsible to no God!