LIFE AND ORGANISATION. 77 



even as far down as the simple germ of the Protozoa, before 

 reaching their final and special organisation. Of this very 

 curious fact the human structure itself is an example ; a fact 

 not neglected by those (and, strange to say, from paradox or 

 petulance there are such) who love to degrade man in the 

 scale of being. The attempt is a futile one. The Protozoon 

 stops at his destined place in the lowest scale of being. Man 

 reaches by definite steps the high organisation which is 

 designed for him. Each of these, and every species inter- 

 mediate in the animal world, attains, and is arrested at, the 

 point marked out for it in the long line of created life. 



The whole subject of types is one of the deepest interest. 

 The doctrines of St. Hilaire led him to refer all animal life 

 to a single primitive type only. Cuvier, followed by the far 

 greater number of naturalists, has denoted four as absolutely 

 marked and distinguished in nature. Subordinately again, 

 or included within this theory of types, comes the more 

 recent doctrine of Homologues ; teaching us the relations of 

 equivalent parts of structure throughout the animal world. 

 A fine conception of Groethe half poetry, half philosophy 

 became, under what we will not call the sober enquiry of 

 Oken (for the genius of Oken has no mark of sobriety upon 

 it), but became by his research and that of other naturalists, 

 an integral part of natural science. Had we space for it, we 

 should gladly put before our readers some account of the 

 valuable contributions of Professor Owen to this curious 

 branch of knowledge ; the researches by which he has con- 

 firmed the view of the Skull as an extension of the vertebral 

 column; and his remarkable work on Limbs, in which 

 portions of structure in different animals, seemingly the 

 most unlike in aspect and use, are all resolved into common 

 relations of typical structure. These things must be regarded 

 not as mere naked facts, but as the interpreters to our rea- 

 son of an Almighty design, in action from the earliest ages 



