404 NATURE AND MAN. 



cause for the endowments that made the primordial germ suscep- 

 tible of their action. And of a beginning, we have even clearer 

 evidence in the organic than in the inorganic world ; since it may 

 be accounted as certain that there could have been no life upon 

 our globe, until its surface had so far cooled down that water 

 could remain as a liquid in its depressions. And in the so-called 

 laws of organic evolution, I see nothing but the orderly and con- 

 tinuous working-out of the original intelligent design. 



There are some, however, who feel no difficulty in accepting 

 the doctrine of evolution as regards the animal and vegetable 

 creation generally, but nevertheless cannot bring themselves to 

 believe that it is equally applicable to Man ; whose place in 

 Nature, it is contended, is psychically so far above that of the 

 creatures which most nearly approach him physically, as to justify 

 his being placed on a different platform. Now, I recognize to its 

 fullest extent the weight of this objection ; for whilst freely ad- 

 mitting (as the result of my own life-long study of comparative 

 psychology) the possession, by many among the higher animals, of 

 reasoning powers and moral attributes which are of the same kind 

 as those of Man, however much below his in degree, I hold firmly 

 to the conviction that Man, in his condition of fullest development, 

 is essentially distinguished from them iaW, first, by his possession 

 of a self-directing power, and second, by his capacity for unlimited 

 progress. " The soul," says Francis Newman, " is that part of 

 "our nature which is in relation with the Infinite;" and I do 

 not know what better definition could be given of it And I 

 should regard the possession of this "soul" as fully justifying 

 the exemption claimed for Man, if it could be shown to be 

 something distinctly added on, at any given moment of his 

 existence, to his previous capacities. The very contrary, however 

 is the fact, as I hope now to satisfy you. 



Every human infant born into the world, began its existence 

 nine months previously in the condition of a " jelly-speck," not to 

 be distinguished by any recognizable characters from what we may 

 suppose to have been the primordial germ of the animal world in 

 general. This first evolves itself into an aggregate of cells, corre- 

 sponding with that which represents a higher stage of Protozoic 

 life ; and long before it shows any trace of the Vertebrate type of 



