THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



its Development. In the higher animals these changes 

 are extremely complicated but they have been almost 

 completely unravelled by Von Baer and others. The 

 organism commences its existence as an egg, or ovum ; 

 under the proper conditions this apparently insignifi- 

 cant particle of matter becomes animated by a new 

 and mysterious activity. It grows and then splits into 

 two parts ; by the repetition of this process the whole 

 yelk of the egg is converted into a mass of granules, 

 each of which consists of a minute spheroid of yelk- 

 substance, inclosing a central nucleus: "Nature, by 

 this process, has attained much the same result as that 

 which a human artificer arrives at by his operations 

 in a brick-field. She takes the rough plastic material 

 of the yelk and breaks it up into well-shaped, toler- 

 ably even-sized masses — handy for building up into 

 any part of the living edifice. Next, the mass of or- 

 ganic bricks, or cells^ as they are technically called, 

 thus formed, acquires an orderly arrangement'' '^^ un- 

 til one after another the organs and parts of the adult 

 are formed. 



If we analyse this description, and it is a typical 

 one for the cell theory, we immediately note how 

 specious it really is. The emphasis is first placed on 

 the apparent simplicity of the ovum which prepares 

 our mind for the admission that the drop of proto- 

 plasm is very like to a drop of water or other material 

 substance. It also seems simple to say that it grows 



31 Huxley, Man's Place in Nature, pp. 82-5. 



C 290 3 



