WORLD-THOUGHTS, 325 



destined elevation is reached, when further development is 

 arrested. It is now a favorite doctrine among some em- 

 bryologists that every higher type, in the progress of its 

 development, passes in succession through phases which 

 represent the fixed conditions of the several orders below 

 it. The author of the " Vestiges of Creation" has conse- 

 quently undertaken to show at what period of his exist- 

 ence the embryo man corresponds to the fish — at what to 

 the salamander — at what to the tortoise, the bird, the 

 whale, the quadruped, and the ape. Indeed, he goes a 

 step farther, and insinuates that the rank to which any 

 embryo is developed is limited only by the term of incu- 

 bation or gestation, so that by prolonging this term an 

 offspring of higher grade than the parents may result. 

 There is danger of pushing analogies too far. Similar se- 

 quents within certain limits do not warrant us in spurning 

 all limits. Analogies are not to be taken for dependent 

 relations. They may, indeed, express identical plan — iden- 

 tical intelligence — but they are liable to fail at any point. 

 Notwithstanding, it must be admitted that Nature fur- 

 nishes us in this case with some very suggestive facts. 

 Unlike the author of the " Vestiges," however, I shall em- 

 ploy these facts to show that intelligence presides over 

 creation, instead of proving its absence. 



Again, worms are lower in rank than insects. The worm- 

 like grub which cuts off our young corn, and the slugs 

 which eat our cherry and rose leaves, are but the embryos 

 of insects. Here, also, the embryo of a higher type appears 

 under the similitude of the adult form of a lower type. 

 Such illustrations could be adduced at great length. We 

 arrive, then, at the conclusion that Nature, in realizing the 

 succession of phases through which an embryo is made to 

 pass, gives expression to the same succession of ideas as we 

 recognize in the gradations of adult animal forms, 



