208 LESSONS FKOM NATURE. [CHAP. 



mined evolution. One such observer, at least, has been 

 thus turned from crass materialism, if not to theism, yet to 

 the belief in a Pantheistic Demiurge ever weaving Protean 

 matter into structures, the cross relations and affinities of 

 which are too complex for the sharpest of human observers 

 to unravel. Thus, time has brought about strange changes. 



&quot; Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.&quot; 



From the same professorial chair whence Professor Owen, 

 Aresunec- i n 1849, promulgated his views as to &quot;Philosophical 

 tion. Anatomy,&quot; Professor Huxley, in 1870, gave out in 



turn his quasi-vertebral theory of the skull, followed four 

 years later by Professor Parker. Moreover, Professor Huxley 

 has not only eloquently proclaimed the complete compati 

 bility of &quot; Teleology &quot; with &quot; Evolutionism,&quot; but even the 

 utter impotence of the latter to weaken, in however small a 

 degree, the position of the teleologist. If such results are 

 admitted by those who are at once zealous evolutionists and 

 Develop- eminent advocates of the supreme importance of 

 ment - the study of development, they may well be yet 



more apparent to those who, on principle, deny that the 

 study of development is the one key whereby may be un 

 locked the mysteries of animal organization. Useful, highly 

 useful in its degree, as is the study of development, its im 

 portance seems to me to have been of late somewhat over 

 estimated. For, in the first place, it is manifest that if our 

 embryological researches be carried back as far as possible, 

 we shall not find in the incipient germ any available cha 

 racters at all, while at later stages diversities in the inter 

 pretation of nascent structures are almost always possible. 

 In backboned animals, when the skull begins to assume the 

 consistence of cartilage, the meaning of the initial changes 

 of that process must be elucidated through the changes 

 which take place at subsequent stages. Thus Professor 

 Huxley has lately * testified, referring to the development of 



* See Proceedings of the Zoological Society, for 1874, Part ii. p. 199. 



