Picture - Cosmic Polymath

SUCCESSIVE CHANGES WITNESSED IN THE GROWING PARTS 399
and missing links in the geological record which cannot be bridged over or satisfactorily accounted for ; plants and
animals are persistent to a practically unlimited extent : species, if produced by natural selection and modification,
should never reach a point where further modification is impossible ; plants and animals, if cultivated and then
left to themselves, invariably breed back to their originals ; they deteriorate as well as advance ; sterility follows
attempts at interbreeding plants and animals in the absence of affinities, and where they do not belong to the same
root stock. All the peculiarities attributed to evolution can, it appears to me, be more readily and satisfactorily
explained by the existence of progressive, that is, gradually ascending types ; each type having prescribed limits.
Evolution, strictly speaking, can only apply to development and advance within types. It does not date back
to, or account for, the beginnings of life.^ Similar remarks are to be made of heredity. This extends only to
types and centres of departure, and has a limited range. It is not a continuous advance from the lowest to the
highest in either plant or animal. Reproduction, development, and heredity are parts of the same problem, and what
is true of the one is true of the other. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to bear in mind that in the
inorganic, as well as in the organic kingdom, each substance plays a distinct role, its relations and combinations
being conditioned and pre-determined. The elements are separate and distinct ; fusion and union being possible
only up to a certain point. So in plants and animals. All plants and animals are not originally formed out of
exactly the same materials. Even protoplasm (the so-called physical basis of life), which is almost universally
regarded as a simple homogeneous substance, identical in all its parts and particles, is composed of oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, and carbon (four elements), and to these, in many cases, are to be added varying proportions of sulphur
and other elements in small but appreciable quantities. The cells, moreover, which according to the Germans
produce protoplasm, in some instances contain glycogen, in others cholesterin, in others protagon, and in others
myosin. There is a protoplasm for the several kinds of plants and animals, each producing its own kind ; there
is even a protoplasm for each of the tissues, nerve, brain, bone, and muscle. Some protoplasm produces fat, some
pepsine, and some pigment. As Strieker explains, protoplasm may be fluid, semi-fluid, or firm and resisting. It
also varies greatly in shape, being at times club-shaped, bottle-shaped, spindle-shaped, branched, prismatic, and
polyhedral. Protoplasm, it will be observed, is not the simple substance it is claimed to be. If, however, it is
compound (and this must be admitted), the argument in favour of evolution in the wider sense disappears. That
doctrine, as is well known, refers the origin of all plants and animals to protoplasm as seen in the protiston, amoeba,
and other low rudimentary forms. Some, as stated, even assert that plants and animals are evolved from dead
matter (spontaneous generation). If, as explained, protoplasm is not a simple homogeneous substance, then it
follows that plants and animals have not a simple but a complex origin, and the difEerentiations which characterise
them, even up to man, are original endowments ; a state of matters which naturally results in types ; the types
being conditioned, with boundaries in time and space.
In the inorganic and organic kingdoms there is, as has been pointed out, a tendency on the part of the sub-
stances composing them to split up longitudinally and transversely, to radiate, to arrange themselves in concentric
lines, and to assume spiral and other shapes. These arrangements give rise to typical leading forms which are
persistent and permanent. Thus in igneous rocks longitudinal and transverse cleavages are seen (Plate xl., Figs. 1
and 2 ; see also Figs. .3, 4, 6, 8, and 9, page 63) ; in certain crystals radiating and concentric arrangements are met
with (Plate i., page 3) ; in other cases dendritic or branching arrangements occur (Plate ii., page 5 ; Plate xxxiv.,
and XXXV., pages 54 and 55) ; while in others curved and spiral arrangements are encountered (Plates x. and xi.,
pages 24 and 25 ; Plates xiii. and xiv., pages 28 and 29 ; Plates xviii. and xix., pages 34 and 35). Different kinds
of matter imder particular conditions assume certain forms, but there is a hmit to the forms, and everything
bespeaks design, law, and order.
The histories of plants and animals, and especially their reproduction, favour this view. The more rudimentary
plants and animals, as has been already fully explained, reproduce themselves by simple division of their
substance as apart from sexual organs. They are equal to the performance of every function of life, and are
potential hving entities from the first. When sexual organs make their appearance the male and female elements
frequently occur in the same individual. In other cases they occur in different individuals ; a great variety of
co-ordinated movements being required to bring the sexual elements (always molecular and cellular in character)
into contact. Fructification and development proceed on given lines ; the offspring in every case closely resembUng
the parent or parents. It is not a case of plants and animals proceeding from those immediately below them by
unbroken continuity of substance, but of plants and animals created on higher levels according to a common plan ;
the plants and animals being conditioned and forming types with more or less well-defined boundaries, the possible
variations being limited.
1 Extreme evolutionists, who believe in spontaiieoua generation, regard the organic kingdom as the product of the inorganic kingdom, as
apart from a Creator, Designer, and First Cause.