THE ORIGIN OF MAN 217 



and molar and molecular activities work hand 

 in hand. 



So much for a hen's egg ; but even more 

 wonderful is the growth of the ovum in Placentals 

 when the molecules are selected hour after hour, 

 day after day, from the placental blood-stream. 



It is marvellous that all these atoms should be 

 collected in the ovum ; it is marvellous that a little 

 heat should cause them to form such molecular 

 combinations, with such wonderful molar and mole- 

 cular activities ; but it is more marvellous still if 

 we consider (as we must if we accept the modern 

 evolutionary hypothesis) that the ovum of a man, 

 the ovum of a hen, and all other ovums there may 

 be, are ovums from the mighty loins of a fire-mist, 

 just as certainly and inevitably as an apple is the 

 fruit of an apple tree. "All our philosophy," said 

 Tyndall, " all our poetry, all our science, all our 

 art — Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael — 

 are potential in the fires of sun." The orbits of 

 the electrons in every drop of ink on this page 

 were predetermined in the nebula. 



When we consider the complexity of an atom, 

 and the myriads of permutations and combinations 

 through which every atom has passed on its journey 

 through space and time to the brain of a man, we 

 realise that only the hand of Purpose could have 

 ever brought it safely there. The evolution of 



