_Attorney-General Stewart_: If the Court please, in this case, as Mr. Darrow stated, the defense is going to insist on introducing scientists and Bible students to give their ideas on certain views of this law, and that, I am frank to state, will be resisted by the state as vigorously as we know how to resist it. We have had a conference or two about the matter, and we think that it isn’t competent evidence; that is, it is not competent to bring into this case scientists who testify as to what the theory of evolution is or interpret the Bible or anything of that sort. THE DEFENSE _Mr. Neal_: The defendant moves the court to quash the indictment in this case for the following reasons: In that it violates Sec. 12, Art. XI, of the Constitution of Tennessee: “It shall be the duty of the general assembly in all future periods of the government to cherish literature and science....” I want to say that our main contention after all, may it please your honor, is that this is not a proper thing for any legislature, the legislature of Tennessee or the legislature of the United States, to attempt to make and assign a rule in regard to. In this law there is an attempt to pronounce a judgment and a conclusion in the realm of science and in the realm of religion. THE PROSECUTION _Mr. McKenzie_: Under the law you cannot teach in the common schools the Bible. Why should it be improper to provide that you cannot teach this other theory? THE DEFENSE _Mr. Darrow_: Can a legislative body say, “You cannot read a book or take a lesson or make a talk on science until you first find out whether you are saying against Genesis”? It can unless that constitutional provision protects me. It can. Can it say to the astronomer, you cannot turn your telescope upon the infinite planets and suns and stars that fill space, lest you find that the earth is not the center of the universe and that there is not any firmament between us and the heaven? Can it? It could—except for the work of Thomas Jefferson, which has been woven into every state constitution in the Union, and has stayed there like a flaming sword to protect the rights of man against ignorance and bigotry, and when it is permitted to overwhelm them then we are taken in a sea of blood and ruin that all the miseries and tortures and carrion of the middle ages would be as nothing.... If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers.