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eggs—and the word “ eggs” may be applied to the embryo of all creatures, 
for they are all eggs, though, it may be, in different forms and conditions,— 
the property of growing in a different way from that in which the parent 
animal grew itself. How is the animal to transmit this peculiar 
power and force? If we only think of this for a moment, we must see that 
we are invited to believe that which is utterly incredible. The limits of 
deviation are prescribed for the whole human race, and the entire family of 
mankind necessarily exists within those limits. 
Mr. W. Grirrirus.—In the days of Harvey, the discoverer of the circula- 
tion of the blood, this very theory of evolution was started by French 
philosophers, who held that creation was in reality a system of evolution 
from minute particles. But Harvey took the illustration of the hen’s egg, 
and showed that all the parts of the developed animal must have existed in 
the egg from which it came, and that the production of the chicken was not 
a species of evolution, dependent on the conditions of warmth and other 
external influences outside the shell. Harvey was at that time considered 
as having put an end to this doctrine, which, after all, was merely an hypo- 
thesis, for the foundation of which no facts could be produced. All that 
was done by those who advanced the evolution theory was to say : “If so 
and so, then so and so”; but they never proved that ‘‘so.and so” did, in 
the first instance, exist. Throughout the whole of their arguments there 
was nothing to show that organic life of the animal or vegetable world was 
developed from inorganic matter, nor that the moral life of the human 
being was developed from the organic life of the animal. 
Mr. D. Howarp, V.P.I.C.—I am sure we have all enjoyed Mr. Hassell’s 
paper,which has so vigorously and clearly put before us the weak points of 
the evolution hypothesis. I think it quite true, as has been already stated, 
that the worst enemies of the evolution theory are those who belong to the 
romantic school. The fact that it is impossible to think out the real 
Darwinian hypothesis without calling in some such aid as is afforded by 
Miss Buckley’s fairies, and giving an anthropomorphic turn to the discus- 
sion by imputing reason to plants and the lower animals, shows the 
peculiar difficulty in the way of accepting the theory. That variations— 
the results of blind chance—should gradually improve a species is the 
original hypothesis, and it is one that is singularly unproved by anything in 
the shape of reasonable evidence. The throwing in of a few millions 
of years does not, to my mind, help the matter; it is rather like 
saying: ‘‘Two parallel lines do not include a space, but if you go on 
continuing the same lines for millions of miles, who can say they will not 
produce such a result ?” This, however, would seem to be the tendency of 
modern thought ; and the primary difficulty I have thus stated in regard to 
the Darwinian theory is one which even its own advocates and defenders 
seem unable to get over. They are obliged, therefore, to call in the aid of 
the anthropomorphic method adopted by the writers to whom allusion has 
been made. But the more difficult points they have to get over are those 
to which Mr, Hassell has called attention. How, for example, can a two-celled 
heart become a four-celled heart ? We can understand the action of either, but 
