68 NOTES. 



and assumptions, which puts the matter clearly enough 

 in its true light. 



No one ventures to deny, at the present day, that 

 every human being grows from the ^gg in lUero, just 

 as a dog or a monkey does ; the facts are before us 

 and can be scrutinised in detail. We may ask of those 

 who refuse to admit the gradual and natural develop- 

 ment of man's consciousness in the ancestral series, 

 passing from ape-like forms into indubitable man, 

 " How do you propose to divide the series presented 

 by every individual man in his growth from the ^gg } 

 At what particular phase in the embryonic series is the 

 soul with its potential consciousness implanted .'' Is 

 it in the ^gg ? in the foetus of this month or of that .'' 

 in the new-born infant ? or at five years of age ? " 

 This, it is notorious, is a point upon which Churches 

 have never been able to agree ; and it is equally 

 notorious that the unbroken series exists — that the 

 egg becomes the foetus, the foetus the child, and the 

 child the man. On the other hand we have the 

 historical series — the series, the existence of which is 

 inferred by Darwin and his adherents. This is a 

 series leading from simple egg-like organisms to ape- 

 like creatures, and from these to man. Will those 

 who cannot answer our previous inquiries undertake to 

 assert dogmatically in the present case at what point 

 in the historical series there is a break or division ? 

 At what step are we to be asked to suppose that 

 the order of nature was stopped, and a non-natural 



