THE CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN LIFE 45 



Still, we are in no hurry to cross the frontier/ and 

 so get beyond the range of scientific teaching. Full 

 account must be made of human organism. Eecent 

 scientific research has shed a flood of light on its 

 embryonic life, its development, and its functions. 

 Keeping rigidly to scientific lines for a time, we shall 

 be able so far to contemplate the physical life alone, 

 reserving for a later stage of inquiry all that belongs 

 to rational life. The grand and most impressive 

 lesson of modern biology is the unity of scheme in the , 

 structure of organism. Man is the crowning feature \ 

 in this scheme, essentially a member of the one great 

 order of organised existence, but conspicuously its 

 leading member. Let us do justice to his place in the 

 animal kingdom. His physical nature is built up on 

 the single plan applicable to all organised existence. 

 Each individual human life springs from an egg, just 

 as in the case of lower orders of life; the first movements 

 in the embryonic life are those of nuclei and proto 

 plasm preparing for multiplication within the egg, just 

 as in the history of every species of animal ; the un 

 folding human embryo passes through similar stages 

 of embryonic advance as those through which animals 

 pass ; by a process rigidly conforming to common law, 

 provision is made for development of vital organs, 

 formation of limbs, and structure of organs of special 

 sense. When the moment of birth comes, a perfectly 

 formed organism is ushered into being, to begin an 

 existence more independent as a distinct individua- 

 _ty. What we contemplate here is organism, in its 

 embryonic and in its infant stages. The most im 

 pressive lesson which embryology has taught us is, 

 the general identity of plan which regulates the 



