Likenesses ; or, Philosophical Anatomy 271 



nient are as much to be considered as are its earlier stages. 

 We are far indeed from denying that the study of embryo- 

 logy is of great importance, that the investigation as to ' how 

 things become ' is a most interesting and valuable inquiry ; 

 but we deny that it is all-important.^ Aristotle declares the 

 essence of a thing to be ' what it is to be/ and the outcome 

 of development is, to our mind, the important matter. If 

 the apes of the old world, and of the new, have descended 

 from radically diiferent stocks, are they on that account not 

 to be classed together as apes ? If it turns out that birds 

 have come, not from one but several distinct reptilian 

 sources, are they not all just as much and as truly ' birds ' for 

 all such divergence in origin ? 



Our view as to each organism is, that it is, dynamically 

 considered, a single form or force, which the human mind is 

 unable to thoroughly comprehend and appreciate. Partial 

 apprehensions of it are to be obtained by different modes of 



^ The widespread tendency now existing to sacrifice other and more 

 important considerations to considerations as to origin, is noted by Mr. 

 Morley, in his work on Compromise, 1874. He tells us (p. 23) : * Curiosity 

 with reference to origins, is for various reasons the most marked element 

 among modern scientific tendencies. . . . Character is considered less with 

 reference to its absolute qualities, than as an interesting scene, strewn with 

 scattered rudiments, survivals, inherited predispositions. Opinions are 

 counted rather as phenomena to be explained than as matters of truth or 

 falsehood. Of usages we are beginning, first of all, to think where they came 

 from, and secondarily, whether they are the most fitting and convenient that 

 men could be got to accept. In the last century, men asked of a belief or a 

 story, Is it true ? We now ask. How did men come to take it for true ? In 

 short, the relations among social phenomena which now engage most atten- 

 tion are relations of original source, rather than those of actual consistency 

 in theory, and actual fitness in practice. The devotees of the current method 

 are more concerned with the pedigree and genealogical connections of an 

 idea, than with its own proper goodness or badness, its strength or its weak- 

 ness.' The author goes on to show, from his point of view, some of the evils 

 attendant on this method, such as, ' its tendency, if uncorrected, to make 

 men shrink from importing anything like absolute quality into their proposi- 

 tions,' and ' to place individual robustness and initiative in the light of 

 superfluities with which a world that goes by evolution can very well 

 dispense.' 



