86 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



other animal-embryo a little higher in organization 

 than that just passed. Continuing his ascent that 

 also is overtaken, the now very complex embryo 

 making up to one animal-embryo after another 

 until it has distanced all in its series, and stands 

 alone. As the modern stem-winding watch con- 

 tains the old clepsydra and all the most useful 

 features in all the timekeepers that were ever 

 made; as the Walter printing-press contains the 

 rude hand -machine of Gutenberg, and all the 

 best in all the machines that followed it ; as 

 the modern locomotive of to-day contains the 

 engine of Watt, the locomotive of Hedley, and 

 most of the improvements of succeeding years, so 

 Man contains the embryonic bodies of earlier and 

 humbler and clumsier forms of life. Yet in making 

 the Walter press in a modern workshop, the arti- 

 ficer does not begin by building again the press 

 of Gutenberg, nor in constructing the locomotive 

 does the engineer first make a Watt's machine 

 and then incorporate the Hedley, and then the 

 Stephenson, and so on through all the improving 

 types of engines that have led up to this. But 

 the astonishing thing is that, in making a Man, 

 Nature does introduce the framework of these 

 earlier types, displaying each crude pattern by it- 

 self before incorporating it in the finished work. 



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