14 
But, supposing that interdependence of parts, this complexity 
of structure militates against the permanence of the whole? 
Suppose it narrows the conditions, makes it less able to bear the 
shock of opposing circumstances under which the organism can 
exist, and so render it less able to compete advantageously with 
less specialized organisms in the struggle for life ? 
Did we not see that the palzontologist declares that, as soon 
as a species attained its highest degree of specialization, it dis- 
appeared from the earth ? 
Specialization in itself is not indicative of perfection, or 
progressive development, or superiority. It only means that an 
organ has been modified, so as to adapt its possessor to particular 
conditions of existence. The ancestors of the horse had five 
toes as we have. In process of time, four toes atrophied, and the 
nail of one became developed into a hoof. But a hoof is not a 
higher type of structure than a foot, nor is it indicative of a 
nobler animal. Put a horse among bogs or swampy ground, and 
its one-toed foot would be a disadvantage,—might entail its 
destruction. The area on which it can exist is now limited to 
comparatively ard ground. 
Specialization cannot, then, always be taken as a criterion 
of progress, for it may be characteristic of degeneracy. 
Granted that the process of development is from the simple 
to the more complex, 7s the more complex always the more perfect ? 
Are there no categories in other departments of life in which the 
highest from one point of view is not the highest from another ? 
Are not the simple and the lowly nearer the great centre and 
origin of life and larger participators in its power? In estimating 
the rank of the groups into which we divide the lower organisms, 
as we term them, one quality particularly seems to me to have been 
lost sight of,—that of duration. It is a problem connected with 
Time, and many problems are insoluble if Zime be left out of 
account. There is given to each individual at birth a certain 
guantum of life. This may assume an active or passive form. 
It may maintain the vegetative unconscious life of the organism 
through long years practically unimpaired, or it may be expended 
in conscious activities in a decade. And so with those groups of 
organisms we have been considering with varying periods of 
existence. In dealing with individual human life we count 
length of days as implying some advantageous quality, and in 
families, long descent, or that principle of permanence in the 
blood is reckoned as giving them a claim to be among the 
aristocracy of the earth. What, then, are we to say of those 
structureless specks of protoplasm, such as the Foraminifera of the 
Chalk ?—a genus of animals which through unimaginable ages 
has existed practically unaltered, and has played, as we have 
said, no mean part in the economy of the globe. Imagine that 
family to have a memory, a consciousness of its past! What 
