) 1) 
1872,] 305 [Price. 
the ages of their existence. Surely, to do away with this great fact, and 
the further fact that all is now proceeding as it did from the dawn of 
history, written or monumental, we must, in the absence of all other facts, 
except speculative inferences from very small things, called rudiments, 
conclude that God made man in the image he now bears, physical and 
mental, except as man has educated himself, as no other creature was 
ever endowed with the capacity of doing. The great lines of demarcation 
between the animal that has always followed only his assigned instinct, 
and the higher being that has always had power to invent and make the 
forces of nature, and all other animals subservient to his uses,—to invent 
language, writing, printing, and to indefinitely accumulate knowledge 
and perfect his own character,—have always existed over the earth, side 
by side, utterly incapable of fusion, and in extreme contrast, in their 
most marked characteristics. "When we study by the microscope we are 
not to disregard the great things beheld by the unaided vision. If we 
see the mote, we must see the beam also. 
So far I have but quoted from Darwin in relation to the theory of evolu- 
tion. His simplicity and candor made it easy to answer him by his own 
books. A writer in the British Quarterly, for October, 1871, appears to 
have been assisted by microscopic observations, and says: ‘‘ Almost every 
tissue of the newt, frog, toad, and green tree-frog, has individual char- 
acteristics of its own, which could be distinguished by one who was 
thoroughly familiar with the microscopic characters of the texture.” 
“The nerve fibres in every part of the body of the newt, differ in many 
minute particulars from those of the frog.’’? ‘In these animals not only 
do corresponding tissues exhibit peculiarities, but entire organs are 
totally different.’”? And he points out the differences. ‘‘Again, if we 
take the skin of the four animals mentioned above, although it will be 
seen that there is a certain general agreement in structure to be recog- 
nized, there is not a texture of the skin that is alike in them all,’’ and the 
differences are pointed out, with the assertion that ‘these seem to increase 
in number the more thoroughly and the more minutely the tissues are ex- 
plored.”’ P. 248-9. If this closer test shall continue to be applied, it prob- ; 
ably may yet be believed that ‘‘ All flesh is not the same flesh ; but there 
if one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and 
another of birds,’’? and that men may safely eat all the others. 
Professor Wyville Thomson, in a late lecture in the University of Edin- 
burgh, said: ‘‘ During the whole period of recorded human observation, 
not one single instance of the change of one species into another has 
been detected, and, singular to say, in successive geological formations, 
although new species are constantly appearing, and there is abundant 
evidence of progressive change, no single case has as yet been observed 
of one species passing through a series of inappreciable modifications into 
another.”’? ‘‘Nature,’? November, 9th, 1871. 
And here I would ask to read the forcible statement of our Secretary, 
Mr. Lesley, who adds his authority and force of logic to that of many 
eminent naturalists, and, I believe, nearly all the members of this Society 
A. P. 8.—VOL, XII.—2M. 
