176 LESSONS FEOM NATURE. [CHAP. VI. 



if man and the orang are diverging descendants of a creature 

 with certain cerebral characters, then that remote ancestor 

 must also have had the wrist of the chimpanzee, the voice of 

 a long-armed ape, the blade-bone of the gorilla, the chin of 

 the siamang, the skull-dome of an American ape, the iscLium 

 of a slender loris, the whiskers and beard of a saki, the liver 

 and stomach of the gibbons, and the number of other cha 

 racters in which the various several forms of higher or lower 

 Primates respectively approximate to man. 



But to assert this is as much as to say that low down in the 

 scale of Primates was an ancestral form so like man that it 

 might well be called an homunculus ; and we have the virtual 

 pre-existence of man s body supposed, in order to account 

 for the actual first appearance of that body as we know it 

 a supposition manifestly absurd if put forward as an 

 explanation. 



The question, however, regarding development may be 

 Astode- thought by some to be more important and sig 

 nificant than adult structure. But here again we 

 have but to look facts boldly in the face and fearlessly to 

 consider the possibilities of the case. The body of each man 

 born, must, to resemble an animal at all, originate by a germ 

 and embryo of some kind. For this is the law not only 

 of all animals but even of all plants also.* 



Now let us suppose that the embryo of man, instead of 

 taking that course of development which is the law of the 

 class to which he belongs, assumed at once the miniature 

 form and proportions of the adult body. Would this be any 

 proof of miraculous origin, or that man s original appearance 

 was due to another operation than in the case of other 

 animals? Certainly not, for it would be easy for the 

 naturalist to point to many of the lower animals in which 

 such a direct building up of the adult form takes place. 



But it is surely natural and congruous that if an animal 

 of the class mammalia was to be formed and endowed with 



* We arc not here considering the question of spontaneous generation. 



