334 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



embryo examined at successive minutes, not eveii a 

 microscope would disclose any sensible changes. That 

 the uneducated and ill-educated should think the hypo- 

 thesis that all races of beings, man inclusive, may in 

 process of time have been evolved from the simplest 

 monad a ludicrous one is not to be wondered at. But 

 for the physiologist, who knows that every individual 

 being «8 so evolved — who knows further that in their 

 earliest condition the germs of all plants and animals 

 whatsoever are so similar, ' that there is no appreciable 

 distinction among them which would enable it to be 

 determined whether a particular molecule is the germ 

 of a conferva or of an oak, of a zoophyte or of a man ' * — 

 for him to make a difficulty of the matter is inexcus- 

 able. Surely, if a single structureless cell may, when 

 subjected to certain influences, become a man in the 

 space of twenty years,' there is nothing absurd in the 

 hypothesis that under certain other influences a cell 

 may, in the course of millions of years, give origin to the 

 human race. The two processes are generically the same, 

 and differ only in length and complexity," 



The very important extract from Professor Hering's 

 lecture should perhaps have been placed here. The 

 reader will, however, find it page 199. 



• Carpenter's ' Flinciples of Physiology', 3rd ed., p. 867. 



