found it handy to say Ewan and Ioan, while the Scotch, following the Welsh and Russians, said Ewan and Ewing. Now we begin the variations inevitable when Jehochanan, a Jew, wanted people to know that a certain lad was the son of Fehochanan. He called him Ben Fehochanan or Bar, meaning the same thing-"son." The Greek added ides to the Ioann. The Russian said Ivanovitch, one of the most honored of families. The Italian said Giovannelli, meaning "little John," which forms a family name in English, having also been translated Pettijohn. The French heard the Russian vitch and thought it a good sound, so they said Fitz, but put it on in front, thus: Fitz Jean, and the English also adopted that form. The Englishman called the boy either John's son, or John's. From the latter, or from the widow's son who was called Joan's, sprang the Jones family, second in numerical importance to no other "tribe" on Earth, although the Smiths have made rapid strides in the last century. The Norwegian, having said Jahn, also said Fahnsen, and Jansen, and sometimes Janson, from which the y-sound which they persist stands for finally dropped, leaving Anson. The Scot said Mac for "son," and so Mac Ewing and Mac Ewan had their commencement. In Wales the word for "son" is Mab, which has been shortened into ab or ap. When this Welsh custom of ap-ing from generation to generation had gone on a couple of centuries it took as long to call a common man by name as it now does in the case of a Prince, and a law was necessary to reform it. From the long style they fell into the very short one of calling ap Evan, Bevan, which form has since varied into all sorts of shapes. The Germans called the son of Hans, Hanschen. There is reason to believe that the Irish O'Hara is the "son of John." When John was nicknamed Jack, then Jackson followed as a matter of course. Summing up, then, it would be possible to fill a page with variations on the following secondary variations: Ben Jchochanan, Ioannides, Ivanovitch, Fitz Jean, Giovannelli, Bevan, Mac Ewing, Johannis, Hanschen, Fansen, Johnson, Jones, Littlejohn, Pettijohn, and O'Han. The third-class of variations, such as Johnston, Jonson, Bevins, Bevans, Bevinson, Mackwin, Mc II ILLOGICAL NECESSITIES of the ISM. 285 Quinn, would broaden the field for new differences to such an extent as to carry the subject beyond the limits necessary to surprise the average reader with the closeness of the relation thus established between family names of widely-divergent sound, and spelling. Now, in conclusion, after having given the theory of the Evolutionists in its most convincing phases, all the way through, always disclosing only the affirming examples, coloring nearly every thought with the enthusiasm of a disciple, and never endangering the tottering fabric by a discouraging fact, the writer is disposed to think that there has never been a scheme of faith before presented which has exacted such a gulp of allswallowing credulity. If the theory of Evolution be, indeed, essentially correct, then it will be thought in the far future, after at least one billion of additional proofs have manifested themselves, that Darwin was the most remarkable guesser who ever lived. To place the first geological remains of Man in the latest layers, when the Connecticut sandstone of the early Reptilian Age has foot-prints in it; to endow Birds scarcely knowing anything with a refined sense of the beautiful which only one out of three human beings now possesses either by sight or ear, and only one out of a hundred by each; to be obliged to reverse the operation of nearly every one of his laws, and admit the freaks of Nature which should never take place under the rule of development through use, and also that the Deer's antlers increase as their use decreases, instead of becoming rudimentary, as would be necessary, are a few of the monstrously-illogical necessities of the Darwinist. Thousands of objections arise on every side. The Cattle-breeders of Kentucky, studying the laws of variation, fail completely in securing any but evidences of the practical immutability of species. Although a Gorilla has bone for bone with a Man, the naturalist can put the two sets, of the same size, in a bag, shake them up, pour them out and arrange them into skeletons with as much celerity as he could separate Man's bones from among Whales', each element in each structure being stamped by the Maker "Gorilla," or "Man" as clearly as the pipes of an organ are marked by the builder, or the pieces of The Gorilla, standing a marble cornice by the stone-cutter. on the top of one limb of the Y, while Man stands at the other, is still a nearer approach to Man than any animal between the Gorilla and the crotch of the Y, although the distance to Man is, and the variation should be, smaller at every step between Gorilla and crotch. Supposing all intervening species to have disappeared, both between Gorilla and crotch and Man and crotch, together with the crotch itself, and yet throughout animated nature we have no other stepping of one order into another-no other Y but which, according to Darwin, has been knocked to pieces in the same way, leaving always the two upper ends of the figure far apart from each other. Yet Geology, instead of finding these absolutelycountless intermediate forms, discovers the most imposing and terrifying extension of diversity evidence which should rather tend to strengthen a conclusion that we are now a few out of many, and soon to be one, rather than that we are now many out of one, soon to be infinite in variety. Darwin and Haeckel have been fishing in the outer waters of human knowledge. They may, in the language of those fishermen who catch fish, "have something on," but they are utterly unable to pull it out without breaking their frail line, and it is as yet entirely safe to say that they are coquetting with a snag. Notwithstanding all this, it is a genuine recreation to pursue an entirely new idea, especially a thought so vast and ambitious as that of the development of life through Evolution, and the century has shown nothing save Communism more remarkable than this theory. |