THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



who would jump to the conclusion that such an or- 

 ganism is merely material. The jump of the imagina- 

 tion to consider a single microscopic and rudimentary 

 cell of the monad, or of the plant, or of man, all of 

 which can barely be distinguished from each other, 

 as a complex aggregation of chemical elements is 

 neither great, nor seemingly difficult, nor does it 

 shock our sensibilities. If we once grant this assump- 

 tion, then we must accept the same idea for two cells 

 and, by simple addition, for the enormous number of 

 cells comprised within the corpus of a man. The error 

 we have admitted for the single cells seems insignifi- 

 cant and our lazy minds refuse to add up small errors 

 as many times as the biologist tells us to add cells. 



Professor D'Arcy Thompson is quite clear on this 

 point. When Darwin was discussing the leading facts 

 of embryology and, in particular. Von Baer's law of 

 embryonic resemblances [the law from which, be- 

 cause the foetus of a man has at one stage a gill-like 

 structure and a tail, etc., evolutionists have proposed 

 the theory that embryos trace in their growth the past 

 evolutionary stages of their species] he was puzzled 

 because adults show greater differences than embryos. 

 Darwin says: "But there is no reason why, for in- 

 stance, the wing of a bat, or the fin of a porpoise, 

 should not have been sketched out with all their parts 

 in proper proportion, as soon as any part became vis- 

 ible."^" Thompson comments: "It would seem to me 



20 Origin of Species, vol. II, p. 244. 



C 278 3 



