THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 195 
Thompson has so ably described. This wonderful agreement of 
structure and similarity of plan may only show that the Architect 
and Designer of each and all is the same; that His plan is the 
same, and His mode of development the same; that all have one 
common origin and source, as the products of the same Divine 
intellect ; but they do not necessarily show that any one type is the 
development or result of another. There is nothing in the President’s 
address (as we read it) which compels us to suppose, or which even 
enables us to suppose, that among living animals the Ascidian, for 
example, is the lowest type of Man, and Man a fully developed 
Ascidian. The primitive cell which produces the Ascidian may be 
perfectly similar in its development, and yet essentially distinct in 
its character, from the primitive cell which produces Man, or any of 
the higher forms of animal life. We have no difficulty in believ- 
ing that the formative or organizing power does (as Dr. Thompson 
maintains) reside in ‘‘ the living substance of every organized cell, 
and in each of its component molecules, and is a necessary part of 
the physical and chemical constitution of the organizing elements 
in the conditions of life.’”’? But it has not been proved, nor has any 
approach to the proof been reached, that the living substance of 
one organized cell contains in v¢ the elements of some other organised 
cell which, when developed, will produce an animal of altogether 
different character, habits, and capabilities. Until that proof is 
presented, the investigations of embryologists point only to De- 
velopment, about which there is no dispute; they fall short of 
Evolution, and leave it a baseless fabric, an unrealised dream, a 
mere hypothesis. 
The older scientific theory, that every distinct species is the 
result of a distinct act of the Creator, introducing some new element 
or more fully developing what already exists, is perfectly consistent 
with all the facts of embryology described by Dr. Thompson, and 
sufficient to account for them; and, ‘‘in the present state of 
science,” we think it the more rational theory of the two. 
The Evolutionist hitherto has failed to get out of the circle of 
species. His investigations within that circle are most interesting, 
and fill us with ever-increasing wonder at the marvellous skill and 
boundless resources of the Great Artificer; but they do not take 
us from the ‘‘ Species’’ to the ‘‘ Genus,’”’ or even from one species 
to another. They give us links, as they suppose, of the great 
chain of Being which connects the highest with the lowest forms 
