HEREDITY AND EVOLUTI N 87 



lectual life are quite apart from the present stage of 

 inquiry. 



Considering how far these earlier investigations are 

 removed from the problem of man s place in Nature, 

 the conditions of our argument do not require more 

 extended treatment of the subject here, than will 

 suffice for dealing with the question of continuity in 

 natural history, as that may bear on the most 

 elaborate types of organic structure. We require 

 only sufficient fulness of treatment to secure acquaint 

 ance with ascertained facts, and to guard adequately 

 our later inferences, when dealing with the higher 

 forms of life, as these give proof of the action of 

 intelligence. 



There is nothing more marvellous in Nature, as a 

 manifestation of latent potentiality, than the germ-life 

 out of which an elaborate organism is unfolded. The 

 more extended the observation directed upon it, and 

 the more careful the thought given to all the aspects 

 of vital procedure involved in its development, the 

 more must the mind be filled with astonishment. A 

 very minute nucleus is the starting-point for the most 

 elaborate organism ! The fact is the same, whether 

 the example taken be the organism of the dog, of the 

 horse, of the ape, or of man. In the realm of material 

 existence, vital organisation is Nature s masterpiece, 

 summing up in itself all her other processes. 1 Every 

 physiologist grants that the fertilised egg is one of 

 the greatest wonders within our knowledge. 2 In the 

 well-chosen words of A. R. Wallace, No thoughtful 

 person can contemplate without amazement the 



1 Process of Human Experience, by W. Cyples, p. 497, 

 The Law of Heredity, by W. K. Brooks, Baltimore, p. 312. 



