146 DESIGN IN NATURE 



nucleus, and sometimes to movements occurring in the protoplasm. Spemiatozoids have distinct movements, 

 and the heart of the chick, composed entirely of cells, opens and closes wth time-regulated beat independently, 

 and before it contains either muscular fibres or blood. 



EVIDENCES OF DESIGN IN THE REPRODUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF PLANTS 



AND ANIMALS 



Globular, Concentric, Radiating, Branched, Segmented, Curved, and Spiral Arrangements make their 

 Appearance at the very Threshold of Life. 



I have explained that globular, concentric, radiating, branched, segmented, curved, and spiral arrangements 

 obtain in crystals, plants, and animals (Plates i. to xxvi. and Plates Ixxi. to Ixxv.), and the reader has only to 

 examine the figures in the latter plates to be convinced that these arrangements make their appearance at the 

 very threshold of Ufe in the reproductive elements themselves. This is an astounding fact, and cannot be too 

 strongly insisted upon. In reality, the structural features of plants and animals are impressed upon them from 

 the first, and are, so to speak, stereotyped. These arrangements have much significance, as showing that plants 

 and animals are, from the outset, built up according to a great general plan, which apphes to the inorganic and 

 organic kingdoms ahke. Plants and animals are not dissevered from crystals, dendrites, and other physical 

 formations, either in their young or adult conditions ; a general plan runs through and regulates all. The 

 globular, concentric, radiating, branched, segmented, curved, and spiral arrangements met with in crystals reappear 

 in plants and animals at their inception, and at every period of their hfe histories : they are fundamental, and the 

 outcome of design, law, and order. They evince the workings of a great Master Mind, a Supreme Ruler, Director and 

 Upholder — a Controller of events, great and small, in time and space. The only difference between inorganic and 

 organic formations consists in this — that plants and animals live, and are controlled by vital forces ; inorganic 

 formations being controlled by physical forces. The vital and physical forces are, however, equally the servants 

 of the Creator, Who makes and sustains everything. This being so, it need occasion no surprise if the male and 

 female sexual elements of plants and animals display in their substance, both before and after impregnation, when 

 they amalgamate, traces of arrangements which pervade matter as a whole. Nor will wonder be excited when 

 it is stated that these arrangements persist, and run through all plants and animals, from the lowest to the 

 highest, in their embryological, young, and adult states ; and that plants and animals are created on common 

 types, according to an ascending progressive scheme. This view gives no countenance to the " evolutionary " and 

 " natural selection " theories which maintain that plants and animals are manufactured out of each other by 

 infinite modifications in infinite time, and largely by accident. There is no need, and indeed no room, for such 

 theories. The forces at work in nature are not blind forces — they are controlled : the matter on which they 

 operate is assorted matter — nothing happens by chance. 



If the atoms and molecules in the process of crystallisation arrange themselves in a certain order and assume 

 a given form, and if the atoms and molecules of the sextial elements before and after impregnation display char- 

 acteristic arrangements, shapes, and movements, which can be reckoned upon, it is because the matter and the 

 forces are under law and order, and are controlled to given ends. The variations, of which so much has been made 

 by Mr. Darwin and others, are confined within limits, and these limits mark the boundaries of types which are 

 permanent. If the term " accidental " can truly be apphed to " variations," it certainly cannot be applied to 

 types, which are the permanent representatives of law and order as opposed to accident and flux. In the great 

 races of plants and animals the law of reproduction is universal. It is, so to speak, inwoven in their tissues and 

 from the beginning. It dominates the congress of the sexes, their embryological developments, their hfe histories 

 . — everything that pertains to them as individuals, families, and races. 



If it can be shown that reproduction is a law of hfe and fundamental ; if further it can be demonstrated that 

 the elements of reproduction exist in plants and animals in young individuals, and long before the adult and 

 reproductive period, when they are required, arrives ; if finally, it can be proved that the male and female 

 elements, where they exist, are complemental and adapted to each other, and that when the adult stage is 

 reached they not only seek and meet each other, but that they unite and amalgamate to form new beings dis- 

 playing globular, concentric, radiating, branched, segmented, curved, and spiral arrangements, similar to what 

 obtains in crystals, it follows that reproduction is no chance process, but part of a carefully-considered well-ordered 

 scheme. As, moreover, the process of reproduction, in its entirety, is largely involuntary in character the only 

 explanation that can be given of it is that it is a designed process— a means to ends — the ends being seen and 



