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Then^ as to the historical succession of life^ we shall show_, 
by-and-by^ that the testimony of the rocks fails to supply the 
necessary links. But^ admitting that there is a similarity 
of structure in any or all of the sub-kingdoms of the animal 
world, does similarity prove identity or commonality of origin? 
Certainly, says Professor Haeckel. If not, how is it that 
man in some period of his embryonic condition resembles the 
lower animals ? Hear what Professor Agassiz said on this point 
in the year 1873. Embryonic conditions of the higher verte- 
brates to-day recall adult forms of lower vertebrates in the 
earlier geological times. Prom this fact the evolutionist infers 
that there has been some natural development in the long 
sequence of ages of the one out of the other. But the embryonic 
conditions of the higher vertebrates recall adult forms of lower 
vertebrates now living, their own contemporaries, just as 
much and in the same way as they recall the fossil forms. 
Shall we infer that because a chicken or a dog, in our own 
day, in a certain phase of its development resembles in certain 
aspects a full-grown skate, that therefore chickens and dogs 
now-a-days grow out of fishes ? We know that it is not so, 
and yet the evidence is exactly the same as that which the 
evolutionists use so plausibly to support their theory. The 
truth is, that while a partial presentation of the facts seems 
to sustain this theory, when taken in their true connexion 
and fairly stated they destroy it by proving too much. They 
show that the relations between fossil animals supposed to 
prove descent, exist also between living animals where they 
have nothing to do with descent.^-’ 
When speaking of this subject, the Eev. Alexander Stewart, 
M.I)., of Aberdeen, well says : ^^To argue, however, that because 
there is physical similarity there must also be identity of 
being, is to proceed on the basis of a manifest fallacy. We 
might as well conclude that because the bodies of two men 
are the same in kind their moral character must also be iden- 
tical. Have we not what is known in chemistry as isomor- 
phous bodies — bodies which are alike in form and similar in 
chemical constitution, yet different in their properties ? The 
salts formed by these substances, with the same acid and 
similar proportions of the water of crystallization, are identical 
in their form, and, when of the same colour, cannot be dis- 
tinguished with the eye ; magnesia and zinc sulphate may 
be thus confounded . . . In these isomorphous substances 
the identity of shape is so complete that they all possess the 
same crystalline form (octahedron, eight sides). Ho scientist, 
however, will presume to say that they are identical in kind 
or in qualities ; or that the one has been evolved from the 
