9 
form and structure, it seems impossible that any species should 
have survived unaltered what they must have passed through. 
Having very briefly mentioned a few of the difficulties which 
seem to me to lie in the way of our accepting any theory of de- 
velopment as the history of the origin of true species, some of 
which seem to have a power of persistence setting at nought the 
force of external circumstances, I will venture to ask you to consider 
one or two points in what we know respecting that immensely 
more obscure and difficult problem — the Origin of Life, which 
seem to me to indicate that inherent qualities, rather than the 
pressure of outward circumstances, arc really the great determining 
forces which govern alike the development of both individuals and 
species. 
The latest theory of the origin of individuals, in both the animal 
and vegetable kingdom, so far as I am aware is, that each one 
springs in the first instance from a little lump of protoplasm, with- 
out any enclosing membrane, the next state being that of the 
“primitive cell,” possessing a simple membranous coat, “ neither 
can any distinction bo found between the primitive animal and 
vegetable cell.” “At this point all means of distinction between 
the vegetable and animal organism end, and no feature exists 
which, in the present state of science, can enable even the most 
distinguished microscopist to determine to which of the two king- 
doms the individual cell belongs, since it possesses characters 
common to both.” 
We have, it is true, by what has been sarcastically called the 
“habit of spying into nature with magnifying glasses,” learnt .wliat 
are the different steps of growth which lead from the first cell up 
to the fully developed organism ; we know, in fact, exactly how 
the growing plant or animal will be built up until it becomes the 
perfect individual ; but with all our knowledge, we have not learn 
anything, either of the force which creates the cell, or of the force 
which causes the cell to start on its course of growth. As has been 
well said of the force of gravitation, “no further insight into why 
the apple falls is acquired by saying it is forced to fall, or it falls 
by force of gravitation ; by the latter expression we are enabled to 
