TRANSMUTABLE. 237 



I need not again go over ground which has al- 

 ready been trodden. But then, continues Mr. 

 Huxley, with singular inconsistency, "Without 

 asserting that every part of the theory had been 

 confirmed, he maintained that it was the best- 

 explanation of the origin of species which had 

 yet been offered." 



Of course an assumption like this cannot be 

 argued. It is a mere opinion, as proofless as the 

 theory it attempts to support. Mr. Huxley fur- 

 ther remarks that "man was once a monad a 

 mere atom, and nobody could say at what moment 

 in the history of his development, he became 

 consciously intelligent." 



Surely Mr. Huxley must have here been misre- 

 ported, for of all natural phenomena, none are more 

 exquisitely beautiful, and at the same time more 

 damaging to Mr. Darwin's theory, than those 

 which we observe in the study of embryology. 

 That atom, to which Mr. Huxley alludes, contains 

 within itself, the elements for development into 

 the future conscious being, and nothing else; and 

 it is unphilosophical to compare it with a monad, 

 or any other, either mature, or embryonic or- 

 ganism. No other atom of matter in the world 

 is similar, except in external form, or chemical 

 composition, to that germ. Because it is cellular, 

 and contains a nucleus, is it correct to say that 

 it is similar to another nucleated cell, which would 

 ultimately become a fish or a bird? Because we 

 cannot see, still less understand, the process of de- 

 velopment, or rather the power which guides that 



