356 DESIGN IN NATURE 



The histories of plants and animals during development furnish important evidence of the differentiating power 

 inhering in molecules, cells, germs, seeds, and eggs. If all these were originally identical, no differentiation or division 

 of labour could possibly occur : plants and animals would all resemble each other. Instead of this, plants and 

 animals vary infinitely. As the variation cannot be traced to the elements of the inorganic kingdom, it must be 

 referred to the minute, living, primordial masses from which plants and animals originally proceed. These tiny, 

 living masses are potential entities of the most extraordinary kind. They are independent things, each with a 

 course, a career, and a goal. They arrive at the goal at a stated time and by a special route. They cannot alter 

 either the route or the time of arriving at the goal. Plants and animals reach maturity in spite of themselves 

 and by well-defined paths. They have no knowledge of the paths along which they are to travel, or the bourne 

 at which they are ultimately to arrive in their course of development. The several parts of plants and animals 

 are developed sometimes consecutively, and sometimes simultaneously — that is, the growing parts sometimes appear 

 separately and independently, the one after the other, in a given order, and at other times synchronously or together. 

 The parts fit into each other in the completed whole ; plants and animals being structurally and functionally perfect 

 from the anatomical and physiological standpoints. The several portions do not produce each other : they form 

 part of a scheme — a designed whole — and are means to ends. They are adapted to each other and to their 

 surroundings. 



While the original molecules, cells, germs, seeds, and eggs cannot control the direction of their growth and 

 the degree of their development, neither can the adult plants and animals modify or materially alter the molecules, 

 cells, germs, seeds, and eggs which they, in turn, ultimately produce to perpetuate the types. The laws of repro- 

 duction are, in a great measure, stereotyped. There are not only the most perfect arrangements for plants and 

 animals reproducing themselves after their kind, but the tendency and desire to reproduce are universal. The great 

 command, " Increase and multiply," apphes to everything which lives. 



The relations of the rudimentary and young to the more perfect adult plants and animals are of the most 

 intimate description. In the case of animals, the duties of the parent, as a rule, do not cease with the production 

 of the ova or eggs. The eggs of birds have to be hatched out by the parent, and the ova of mammals have to be 

 carried and developed by the mother until the period of parturition arrives. The ova occupy the ovaries of the 

 mother even before the period of puberty arrives. After birth the offspring has to be carefully tended and nursed 

 for longer or shorter periods. The arrangement in the case of mammals entails the most remarkable changes in 

 the mother before and after the birth of the offspring. The mother supplies from her own blood and being during 

 pregnancy the wherewithal to develop the embryo and fostus, and during the parturient period her mammary 

 glands swell and produce a copious supply of milk in anticipation of the advent of the young animal. The food 

 supply and the progeny are timed to each other. 



The amazing transformations which occur in the progeny during pregnancy and after birth are all provided 

 for. Can it be thought for a moment that the various phases of reproduction and development are due 

 to chance ? 



A watch, which is one of the most ingenious of human contrivances, is a crude and clumsy invention when 

 compared with a mammaUan foetus ; but what is true of the one is true of the other as regards a designer. It is 

 inconceivable that an impregnated human or other ovum could arrive at maturity in the uterus, and be born and 

 cared for after birth, as apart from design. At every stage of the reproductive process there is evident adaptation 

 even in the most trivial details. The various systems of the foetus are developed in anticipation of the functions 

 they are to discharge. The heart is prepared to receive blood, the lungs air, the ahmentary canal food. The organs 

 are made for, and not by, the materials with which they have to deal. The blood does not cause the movements 

 of the heart, the air those of the lungs and chest, and the food those of the alimentary canal. These movements are 

 due to original endowment, and are necessary to the continuation of Ufe. Similarly, the secreting and excreting 

 glands are formed before they are called upon to discharge their peculiar functions. The saUvary and gastric 

 glands, the pancreas, hver, &c., are ready to digest the food and enrich the blood : the sudoriferous glands and 

 kidneys to discharge effete products : arrangements are made not only for nourishing the offspring after birth, 

 but also for keeping its blood pure. The lungs and skin take a prominent part in the purification. The several 

 systems of the body are necessary to each other, and are all developed before they are required. The digestive 

 system converts the food into chyle, the lymphatic system absorbs and adds it to the blood, the vascular system 

 transmits the blood and feeds the tissues, the respiratory system oxygenates the blood and the tissues, the muscular 

 system moves the several parts of the body, the osseous system gives them strength and leverage, and the nervous 

 system co-ordmates and regulates the entire animal economy. These facts are wholly opposed to the theories of 

 spontaneous generation, natural selection, evolution, irritabihty, and extraneous stimulation. They are also opposed 

 to the mechamcal theory of hfe. They support my contention of inherent, independent powers in molecules cells 



