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Text of the Closing Statement of William Jennings Bryan at the trial of John Scopes,

Dayton, Tennessee, 1925

(EXCERPT)

Our fifth indictment of the evolutionary hypothesis is that, if taken seriously and made the basis of a philosophy of life, it would eliminate love and carry man back to a struggle of tooth and claw. The Christians who have allowed themselves to be deceived into believing that evolution is a beneficient, or even a rational process have been associating with those who either do not understand its implications or dare not avow their knowledge of these implications. Let me give you some authority on this subject. I will begin with Darwin, the high priest of evolution, to whom all evolutionists bow.

On pages 149 and 150, in “The Descent of Man,” ‘ already referred to, he says:

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick: we institute poor laws and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized society propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to thedegeneration of a domestic race; but, excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

“The aid which we felt impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. * * * We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak serving and propagating their kind.”

Darwin reveals the barbarous sentiment that runs through evolution and dwarfs the moral nature of those who become obsessed with it. Let us analyze the quotation just given. Darwin speaks with approval of the savage custom of eliminating the weak so that only the strong will survive, and complains that “we civilized men do our utmost to check the process of elimination.” How inhuman such a doctrine as this! He thinks it injurious to “build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick” or to care for the poor. Even the medical men come in for criticism because they “exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last moment.” And then note his hostility to vaccination because it has “preserved thousands who, from a weak constitution would, but for vaccination, have succumbed to smallpox!” All of the sympathetic activities of civilized society are condemned because they enable “the weak members to propagate their kind.” Then he drags mankind down to the level of the brute and compares the freedom given to man unfavorably with the restraint that we put on barnyard beasts.

The second paragraph of the above quotation shows that his kindly heart rebelled against the cruelty of his own doctrine. He says that we “feel impelled to give to the helpless,” although he traces it to a sympathy which he thinks is developed by evolution; he even admits that we could not check this sympathy “even at the urging of hard reason, withough deterioration of the noblest part of our nature.” “We must therefore bear” what he regards as “the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind.” Could any doctrine be more destructive of civilization? And what a commentary on evolution! He wants us to believe that evolution develops a human sympathy that finally becomes so tender that it repudiates the law that created it and thus invites a return to a level where the extinguishing of pity and sympathy will permit the brutal instincts to again do their progressive (?) work!

“Evolution is a Bloody Business”

Let no one think that this acceptance of barbarism as the basic principle of evolution died with Darwin. Within three years a book has appeared whose author is even more frankly brutal than Darwin. The book is entitled “The New Decalogue of Science” and has attracted wide attention. One of our most reputable magazines has recently printed an article by him defining the religion of a scientist. In his preface he acknowledges indebtedness to twenty-one prominent scientists and educators, neatly all of them “doctors” and “professors.” One of them, who has recently been elevated to the head of a great state university, read the manuscript over twice “and made many invaluable suggestions.” The author describes Nietzsche, who, according to Mr. Darrow, made a murderer out of Babe Leopold. as “the bravest soul since Jesus.” He admits that Nietzsche was “gloriously wrong,” not certainly, but “perhaps,” “in many details of technical knowledge,” but he affirms that “Nietzsche was gloriously right in his fearless questioning of the universe and of his own soul.”

(Excerpt)
Read the rest here:
http://www5.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/wjb-last/wjb-last.htm

Prophetic if you ask me.