io6 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



' continuity of life ' by processes of Homogenesis (and 

 are yet sufficiently scientific to reject, as untenable 

 and absurd, the hypothesis of special creative fiats) would 

 be compelled to believe that the simple Monad which 

 now lashes about in an organic infusion, or the almost 

 structureless Amoeba which now creeps amongst decaying 

 vegetable tissue, must be derived from an incalculably 

 longer line of ancestry than Man himself. In accord- 

 ance with any evolution hypothesis, Man must be con- 

 sidered as a comparatively recent organic form; and 

 those whose views are at present most widely accepted 

 would have to believe that ages and ages before the 

 advent of Man or his immediate predecessors upon the 

 earth, the ancestry of the Monad, of the Mould, of 

 the Amoeba or of any of the other Infusorial animal- 

 cules now to be seen in their respective habitats, had 

 been tenants of our globe. The mere suggestion seems 

 to carry absurdity in its face. If this were really so, 

 then we could only expect that such forms would 

 be the very types of conservatism and stability, whereas, 

 as a matter of fact, all such organisms are rather the 

 best types of change and mutability. On this subject 

 there is a general unanimity of opinion ; and the very 

 existence of the changes which are now known to 

 take place, seems absolutely antagonistic to the doctrine 

 of the direct lineal descent of the present lowest and 

 most variable forms of life, from similar extremely 

 ancient forms possessed of a like mutability. 



The more we reflect upon it, in fact, the more im- 



