1 66 Cells; or, Evolution. 



duction and extinction. All the orders were mov- 

 ing on, were carrying out the providential law of 

 development and progress through causes adequate 

 for their production, such as observation, logic and 

 philosophy can substantiate; not through an inade- 

 quate name or theory, to which no fact or law cor- 

 responds, and which every law and fact contradicts. 



184. Here, upon the threshold of our own resi- 

 dence, you may turn round and look about you at 



nature as it is to-day. This will help 



Nature as it is. .. . . 



you to realize nature as it was then. 

 Among the orders and species developed as they 

 are, can you recognize any path by which evolu- 

 tion has travelled up ? Where is the line, down 

 through the orders, down to the protoplasmic 

 moneron, or formless cell? Throw in all the hypo- 

 thetical links and transitions which science can 

 hope to discover. Is there a line possible ? Cer- 

 tainly, if evolution had no line of march, it never 

 marched. If it did march, where is the line, be it 

 straight, crooked or curved ? 



185. Mr. Herbert Spencer, following Lindleyand 

 Professor Huxley, draws a diagram, in the second 

 part of his Principles of Biology, chapter 11; and 

 he endeavors to locate in a graphic way, all the 

 actual groups of animal nature, as they stand re- 

 lated to one another, and related to a common cen- 

 tre, protoplasm; for from this, on the evolutionary 

 theory, they should have evolved by some line or 

 other. The protoplasmic cell would thus be at 



