SUCCESSIVE CHANGES WITNESSED IN THE GROWING PARTS 399 



and missing links in the geological record which cannot be bridged over or satisfactorily accounted for ; plants and 

 animals are persistent to a practically unlimited extent : species, if produced by natural selection and modification, 

 should never reach a point where further modification is impossible ; plants and animals, if cultivated and then 

 left to themselves, invariably breed back to their originals ; they deteriorate as well as advance ; sterility follows 

 attempts at interbreeding plants and animals in the absence of affinities, and where they do not belong to the same 

 root stock. All the peculiarities attributed to evolution can, it appears to me, be more readily and satisfactorily 

 explained by the existence of progressive, that is, gradually ascending types ; each type having prescribed limits. 

 Evolution, strictly speaking, can only apply to development and advance within types. It does not date back 

 to, or account for, the beginnings of life.^ Similar remarks are to be made of heredity. This extends only to 

 types and centres of departure, and has a limited range. It is not a continuous advance from the lowest to the 

 highest in either plant or animal. Reproduction, development, and heredity are parts of the same problem, and what 

 is true of the one is true of the other. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to bear in mind that in the 

 inorganic, as well as in the organic kingdom, each substance plays a distinct role, its relations and combinations 

 being conditioned and pre-determined. The elements are separate and distinct ; fusion and union being possible 

 only up to a certain point. So in plants and animals. All plants and animals are not originally formed out of 

 exactly the same materials. Even protoplasm (the so-called physical basis of life), which is almost universally 

 regarded as a simple homogeneous substance, identical in all its parts and particles, is composed of oxygen, hydrogen, 

 nitrogen, and carbon (four elements), and to these, in many cases, are to be added varying proportions of sulphur 

 and other elements in small but appreciable quantities. The cells, moreover, which according to the Germans 

 produce protoplasm, in some instances contain glycogen, in others cholesterin, in others protagon, and in others 

 myosin. There is a protoplasm for the several kinds of plants and animals, each producing its own kind ; there 

 is even a protoplasm for each of the tissues, nerve, brain, bone, and muscle. Some protoplasm produces fat, some 

 pepsine, and some pigment. As Strieker explains, protoplasm may be fluid, semi-fluid, or firm and resisting. It 

 also varies greatly in shape, being at times club-shaped, bottle-shaped, spindle-shaped, branched, prismatic, and 

 polyhedral. Protoplasm, it will be observed, is not the simple substance it is claimed to be. If, however, it is 

 compound (and this must be admitted), the argument in favour of evolution in the wider sense disappears. That 

 doctrine, as is well known, refers the origin of all plants and animals to protoplasm as seen in the protiston, amoeba, 

 and other low rudimentary forms. Some, as stated, even assert that plants and animals are evolved from dead 

 matter (spontaneous generation). If, as explained, protoplasm is not a simple homogeneous substance, then it 

 follows that plants and animals have not a simple but a complex origin, and the difEerentiations which characterise 

 them, even up to man, are original endowments ; a state of matters which naturally results in types ; the types 

 being conditioned, with boundaries in time and space. 



In the inorganic and organic kingdoms there is, as has been pointed out, a tendency on the part of the sub- 

 stances composing them to split up longitudinally and transversely, to radiate, to arrange themselves in concentric 

 lines, and to assume spiral and other shapes. These arrangements give rise to typical leading forms which are 

 persistent and permanent. Thus in igneous rocks longitudinal and transverse cleavages are seen (Plate xl., Figs. 1 

 and 2 ; see also Figs. .3, 4, 6, 8, and 9, page 63) ; in certain crystals radiating and concentric arrangements are met 

 with (Plate i., page 3) ; in other cases dendritic or branching arrangements occur (Plate ii., page 5 ; Plate xxxiv., 

 and XXXV., pages 54 and 55) ; while in others curved and spiral arrangements are encountered (Plates x. and xi., 

 pages 24 and 25 ; Plates xiii. and xiv., pages 28 and 29 ; Plates xviii. and xix., pages 34 and 35). Different kinds 

 of matter imder particular conditions assume certain forms, but there is a hmit to the forms, and everything 

 bespeaks design, law, and order. 



The histories of plants and animals, and especially their reproduction, favour this view. The more rudi- 

 mentary plants and animals, as has been already fully explained, reproduce themselves by simple division of their 

 substance as apart from sexual organs. They are equal to the performance of every function of life, and are 

 potential hving entities from the first. When sexual organs make their appearance the male and female elements 

 frequently occur in the same individual. In other cases they occur in different individuals ; a great variety of 

 co-ordinated movements being required to bring the sexual elements (always molecular and cellular in character) 

 into contact. Fructification and development proceed on given lines ; the offspring in every case closely resembUng 

 the parent or parents. It is not a case of plants and animals proceeding from those immediately below them by 

 unbroken continuity of substance, but of plants and animals created on higher levels according to a common plan ; 

 the plants and animals being conditioned and forming types with more or less well-defined boundaries, the possible 

 variations being limited. 



1 Extreme evolutionists, who believe in spontaiieoua generation, regard the organic kingdom as the product of the inorganic kingdom, as 

 apart from a Creator, Designer, and First Cause. 



