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ible between a frog and a philosopher. It is very true ; truer than he con- 
ceived. In the very first stage, both the Batrachian and the Philosopher 
are nothing but single cells, or a monad ; although in the one case it de- 
velopes into an Aristotle or a Newton, whilst on the other hand it is 
arrested in its development, and gets no higher than the cold, clammy 
croaking animal, which boys pelt, anatomists dissect, and French eat. 
The theory of descent, says Cooke in his Boston Lectures, is without 
doubt a great inductive law r , based upon all biological experience. Prof. 
Jevons (Work, Vol. ii. p. 461), says he “believes the eye was gradually 
developed.” Huxley decidedly affirms that “ if the evolutionary hypo- 
thesis is true, all living matter must have arisen from non-living matter.” 
If on the other hand the formation of matter by the nebular system is cor- 
rect, then again living matter organised itself at the expense of non-living 
or inert matter ; for the present form of life could not exist in a gaseous 
form. 
The evidence in favour of the general theory of development and 
evolution is steadily increasing, as is also the evidence for that special 
theory, so little liked by many, which regards man as literally akin to the 
other members of the animal world. 
Some persons imagine that it is repugnant to our feelings, and to 
Nature that we should descend from an inferior stock. Nature, however, 
never concerns herself in her dealings as to Man’s dignity. Dissent from 
the general doctrine of evolution can only arise either from ignorance of 
some special department of science, or from a bias of feeling against the 
doctrine, “ Choose your hypotheses, I have chosen mine, and I refuse to 
run the risk of insulting any sane man, by supposing, that he seriously 
holds such a notion of that of special creation.” — (Huxley). 
If the evolutionary theory is true, as we have no doubt, then we are 
all descendants of species that lived prior to the Chalk age. 
The first traces of the primordial stock whence man has proceeded 
need not be looked, or sought for in an epoch more distant from the age 
of the Elephas primogenius , than that is, from us, by those who entertain 
any form of the doctrine of progressive development in the newest 
tertiaries. Roscoe, in his Science Lecture, asserts that “ Evolutionism 
has a large amount of truth in it.” However, I leave that theory to be 
proved by future ages, the same as the astronomical one of Galileo, and 
the Newtonian theory of gravitation were. 
If anyone should object to, or deride the doctrine of evolution, or suc- 
cessive development of the animated forms which constitute that 
unbroken chain which extends from the Silurian Sea to the present cycle 
of time, let him seriously reflect, that he has, himself, passed through 
modifications the counter part of those he disputes as much as he has for 
nine months been a water breather, or of aquatic habits, and during that 
time, has undergone seven correlative changes. 
