COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



"Would it be thought sufficient to say that be- 

 cause planets revolve in elliptic courses round 

 the sun, satellites follow the same course round 

 their planets, for the sake of symmetry, and to 

 complete the scheme of nature ? " Moreover, 

 if we were to rest content with this arbitrary 

 assumption, we must needs confess that the 

 symmetry of nature has been but imperfectly 

 wrought out ; for the rudimentary organs which, 

 on this hypothesis, ought always to be present 

 are often entirely wanting. 



In this connection the history of the long 

 exploded hypothesis of Preformation becomes 

 very instructive. The argument is ably pre- 

 sented by Mr. Lewes, in a series of essays on 

 Darwinism, which are still buried among the 

 back numbers of the " Fortnightly Review," 

 but which, it is to be hoped, will presently be 

 reprinted in some more generally accessible 

 form. Mr. Lewes calls attention to the fact that 

 those who still profess to find it incredible that 

 a complex organism should have been devel- 

 oped through long ages and through countless 

 intermediate forms from a unicellular creature 

 like the amoeba, nevertheless find nothing in- 

 credible in the demonstrated fact that complex 

 organisms are developed in a few weeks or 

 months from minute homogeneous germ-cells. 

 Now it is instructive to note that to the physi- 

 ologists of a century ago the latter process of 

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