314 The Morality of Nature 



that a new impulse in evolution from similar simple forms, 

 would anew produce a vertebrate structure. Therefore 

 the possession of a spine need not indicate a close relation- 

 ship to all other creatures with spines. And similarly, 

 though in less forceful manner, it may be said of a four- 

 legged form, that it is to be reached many separate times 

 by the elimination of limbs to the minimum of stability; and 

 so other such forms may be unrelated. Of course if all 

 life be referred back to one primal germ or fiat, then all are 

 related in that; and all subsequent forms of similar appear- 

 ance are more nearly related. But on the other hand the 

 dawn of life, the endowment of certain elements and mole- 

 cules, when they come together, with the power of assimila- 

 tion and growth, may have occurred at many times and 

 places and may be occurring now. 



Therefore, it is possible, even with a single germ original 

 ancestry, that the evolution of ape and man diverged before 

 the establishment of present resemblances ; and indeed it is 

 possible that the divergence was from the primal type of 

 vertebrate life. If, under like circumstances, like forms 

 will be evolved from like precedent, equally it is evident that 

 under circumstances slightly differing, forms slightly dif- 

 fering will be produced. Therefore a resemblance which is 

 not perfect, may be the product, not of recent relationship, 

 but of partial similarity of circumstance. We must concede 

 it possible even that different races of humanity may have 

 arisen from ancestrally different sources, wherefrom life 

 progressed to similar results because of similar stimuli. A 

 study of elementary organization of simple forms, from 

 those of one cell into those of earliest multicellular com- 



