204 From Matter to Man. 



mechanism, avcs must be admitted to contain quite 

 as heterogeneous a collection of models as insecta, 

 and such as might be expected to evolve sponta- 

 neously from the natural automatic working of auto- 

 matic matter-in-motion, once the archetypal bird 

 organism had in the course of time and circumstance 

 developed itself. Taken altogether, birds furnish no 

 more evidence of intelligent design by an Intelligent 

 Designer than other organisms lower in the scale of 

 life. 



Of motor mechanisms either higher or lower than 

 those mentioned, it is unnecessary for the purposes of 

 the New Materialism to detail ; for their forms are 

 just as fantastic and numerous, and their spontaneous 

 evolution no more difficult than the natural creation 

 of a sponge. The complexity and wondrousness of 

 the motions evolved neither vitiates our theory of 

 their common material origin, nor alters our con- 

 ception of their fundamental and haphazard genera- 

 tion. The substance, energy, and functions of the 

 highest animals are, in essentials, not one whit higher 

 or less material than those of the lowest. Each and 

 all are composed of the same matter, their life all 

 arises from the same fundamental energy, and their 

 functions all develop from the same reactions of 

 stimuli. 



Man, for instance, is a complex mechanism built 

 up of a number of infinitely complex sub-mechanisms. 

 These sub-mechanisms are common to almost all 

 animals, though they may work in infinitely different 



