166 WHAT MAY BE LEARNED FROM EOZOON 



It is important that these points should be clearly before our 

 minds, because there has been current of late among natural- 

 ists a loose way of writing with reference to them, which seems 

 to have imposed on many who are not naturalists. It has been 

 said, for example, that such an organism as Eozoon may include 

 potentially all the structures and functions of the higher 

 animals, and that it is possible that we might be able to infer 

 or calculate all these with as much certainty as we can calcu- 

 late an eclipse or any other physical phenomenon. Now, there 

 is not only no foundation in fact for these assertions, but it is, 

 from our present standpoint, not conceivable that they can ever 

 be realized. The laws of inorganic matter give no data whence 

 any a priori deductions or calculations could be made as to 

 the structure and vital forces of the plant. The plant gives no 

 data from which we can calculate the functions of the animal. 

 The Protozoon gives no data from which we can calculate the 

 specialties of the Mollusk, the Articulate, or the Vertebrate. 

 Nor, unhappily, do the present conditions of life of themselves 

 give us any sure grounds for predicting the new creations that 

 may be in store for our old planet. Those who think to build 

 a philosophy and even a religion on such data are mere 

 dreamers, and have no scientific basis for their dogmas. They 

 are as blind guides as our primaeval Protozoon himself would 

 be in matters whose real solution lies in the harmony of our 

 own higher and immaterial nature with the Being who is the 

 Author of all life the Father " from whom every family in 

 heaven and earth is named." 



REFERENCES: "Life's Dawn on Earth." London, 1885. Specimens 

 of Eozoon in the Peter Redpath Museum, Montreal, 1888. 



