of a long period of time, and a large number of forms for compari- 
son, the latter advantage often being denied to the student of the 
remains of larger forms. If I rightly understand the Darwinian 
tlieory, it a.sserts the probability that all organic forms that have 
ever e.Kisted were produced from one primordial germ, which was 
endued with the potentiality of development. If such is the fact, 
how is it that mental has not proceeded pari passu with physical 
development. The lancelet, wliich ranks much higher, so far as 
physical structure is concerned, is far below many insects in mental 
development ; and the beaver, dog, and elephant, are much beyond 
the monkies in reasoning jjower, altliough the latter rank next to 
man in structure. I would also remind you of difference of struc- 
ture exliibited in the bones of different animals, differences so 
great that it is sometimes possible, by the inspection of a small 
fragment to tell to what kind of animal it once belonged. Let us 
also look at the variations in size and outline of the blood cor- 
puscles; will any theory of natural or sexual selection explain 
why the camel has oval and most other mammalians round discs ? 
or that in the musk deer tliey should not only be smaller than any 
other species of deer, hut also smaller than in any other vertebrate ? 
In the vegetable kingdom we find the same minute structural 
distinctions ; the starch granules, for example, exhibit such marked 
differences, that the genus and sometimes the species can be 
determined by a microscopical examination of a few starch grains. 
It is difficult to imagine that any change in external conditions 
should produce these palpable alterations in microscopic structure. 
The fiict that a human embryo, in its earliest stages, cannot be dis- 
tinguished from that of a dog, has been brought forward as demon- 
strative of the oneness of the origin of all organisms, but is it 
proved that they are alike ? althougli with the means of investiga- 
tion we at present possess they appear to be so. The microscopist 
is perfectly well aware that objects, which under the lower powers of 
the microscope appear identical, are, when more highly magnified, 
found to be distinct. 
Professor Flower, in a paper in “Frazer’s Magazine,” 1873 
says:— “Would any wise master builder, who wished to make 
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