CHAPTER VII 



THE BIOLOGICAL RECORD 



After geology and comparative anatomy had thrown the 

 Hght of convincing scientific knowledge upon the before 

 accepted story of the creation, and had given a new impetus, 

 and a new standpoint, for research, progress became rapid 

 indeed. The methods of miscroscopic exploration opened 

 to the view a wider field of physical structure, and the 

 wonders of chemistry and chemical energy grew in cor- 

 responding sequence. Then, aided by these, arose the 

 modern science of biology, so broad in its aim that the 

 ancient comparative anatomy becomes a mere sub-depart- 

 ment within its comprehensive study of the forms, functions, 

 and descent of living beings. 



Although the creation of later higher species of living 

 things, by evolution from lower ones, is so well and so 

 clearly explained by the special works of research, yet in 

 the domain of earlier vital phenomenon there is less light. 

 This science is more recent, and the field is more vast. The 

 questions regarding the derivation of multicellular life out 

 of the single cell, and of the organization of the cell from 

 the primitive protoplasm, and of the generation of proto- 

 plasm in the dawn of life; are all in a stage where great 

 blanks break the story, and make it incoherent. So too, 



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