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The Fundamentals ing link between man and the apes, calling it Pithecanthropus. While, a few years after, Du Bois discovered in recent volcanic deposits in Java a small incomplete skull in one place, and near by a diseased femur (thigh bone), and not far away two molar teeth. These Were hailed as remains of the missing link, and it was forthwith dubbed Pithecanthropus Erectus. The skull was indeed small, being only two-thirds the size of that of the average man. But Professor Cope, one of our most competent comparative anatomists, concluded that as the “femur is that of a man, it is in no sense a connecting link.” The erect form carries with it all the anatomical character- istics of a perfect man. ( “Primary Factors,” 1896, pt. 1, chap, vi.) But the Darwinians themselves have made their full share of erroneous assumptions of facts, and of illogical conclusions. It will suffice for our present purpose to refer to a few of these. Darwin himself made two great mistakes which in the eyes of discerning students vitiate his whole theory. 1. A s to Geological Time. The establishment of Dar- win’s theory as he originally proposed it involved the existence of the earth in substantially its present condition for an indefi- nite, not to say infinite, period of time. In one of his calcula- tions in the first edition of “Origin of Species,” he arrived at the startling conclusion that 306,662,400 years is “a mere trifle” of geological time. I t was not long, however, before his son, Sir George H. Darwin, demonstrated to the general satisfaction of physicists and astronomers that life could not have begun on earth more than 100 million years ago, and probably not more than 50 million; while Lord Kelvin would reduce the period to less than 30 million years, which Alfred Russel Wallace affirms is sufficient time for the deposition of all the geological strata. Evolutionists are now fighting hard and against great odds to be allowed 100 million years for the development of the present drama of life upon the earth.
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