AND POWERS OF BIOPLASM. 283 



for by one hypothesis, but no suggestion is offered with the 

 view of accounting for the fact of the likeness between the 

 living matter of all. Gradations in structure are everywhere 

 pointed out, and the lesson to be learnt from them clearly 

 and minutely explained, but that there are no gradations of 

 difference or resemblance as regards living matter, seems to 

 the evolutionist a fact of no importance, and one that had 

 better be ignored altogether. And yet evolutionists of all 

 people profess to be always in search of facts, and to be ever 

 longing for the discovery of new ones. That no difference in 

 characters can be demonstrated by the means at present at 

 our disposal, between the living matter of the higher animals 

 and the most primitive life stuff, surely deserves our notice. 

 Is it of no significance at all that we cannot identify the 

 living matter of man, dog, ape, reptile, fish, or mollusk ? Is 

 it in no way remarkable that the living matter of man should 

 be neither more nor less complex than that of creatures 

 much lower than he is in the scale ? 



Arguments which are considered highly interesting, and 

 of the utmost importance, having been repeated over and 

 over again, and forced upon the public as irrefragable, have 

 been drawn from the close resemblance asserted to exist 

 at a particular period of development between the human 

 embryo and that of the dog.* Is it not, however, very 

 curious that the fact of the still closer likeness between 

 these embryos at an earlier period of their development is 

 not mentioned, and that the fact that at a still earlier stage 



* I do not, however, admit as a fact that the resemblance at the 

 time selected is very great. By careful examination of well prepared 

 specimens any accurate observer would be able to point out many strong 

 points of difference, even at this early stage of development. 



