Noble Smithson

Smithson’s Theory
of
Special Creation

by
NOBLE SMITHSON

KNOXVILLE:
Victor Publishing Company
1911

Copyright 1911
By NOBLE SMITHSON
All rights reserved, including that of translation
into foreign languages

PUBLISHER’S NOTICE

A copy of this book will be mailed, postage
prepaid, upon receipt of $1.00

VICTOR PUBLISHING CO.

KNOXVILLE. :: TENNESSEE

To the Memory of my
Father and Mother
John Greene Smithson
and
Ann Ladd Smithson

To the Reader: If you care to write me your view of my theory as set forth in the following pages, I shall be pleased to hear from you.

Noble Smithson.

Preface

A critical reader of the works of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Haeckel, Romanes, Weismann, Mivart, Cope and other writers, on organic evolution, will find that there is much diversity in the views of these writers. Darwin believes that the first one, or the first few, animals and plants were directly and specially made by the Creator; Haeckel says the primordial forms arose “by spontaneous generation from inorganic matter.” Referring to the origin of life, Romanes says that “science is not in a position to furnish so much as suggestion upon the subject.” Neither Huxley, Weismann, Mivart nor Cape has anything to say on the origin of life. No two of these writers agree as to the work of the “factors” of evolution. According to Darwin, Romanes and Weismann, natural selection did substantially the entire work of evolving all the species of animal and plant. But Cope, and other evolutionists of the Lamarckian school, hold that use, disuse, pressure, friction and motion did it.

Weismann argues that the inheritance of “acquired characters” is impossible; while Spencer, Romanes and other evolutionists say that Weismann’s views are highly absurd and would entirely destroy the theory of evolution; and I think they are correct in this view. There are many evolutionists for and against Weismann’s theory of heredity. Writers on evolution differ as widely on other important questions, as on these.

Many of the theories of the evolutionists are quite absurd. Among these may be mentioned the theory of “protective mimicry” and “sexual selection.” So their belief that the blind “factors,” working by chance and accident, have differentiated one part of a minute individual into a set of male sexual organs, and another part of the same individual into a set of female sexual organs, as in hermaphroditic animals and plants, appears to be quite preposterous. So it is impossible to believe these “factors” have differentiated one-half of the individuals of each species of mammal into males and the other half into females, for example into men and women. If time and space permitted me, I could easily point out divers other absurdities in the views of the evolutionists.

To be consistent, every evolutionist must maintain that characters, acquired by the parent, are transmitted by heredity to their offspring; for the whole theory of evolution is based on the hypothesis of accumulated “adaptations and variations.” Thus, suppose a pair of snakes have ten vertebræ (joints) in their spinal columns; that each of them acquires one, making eleven; that their offspring start with eleven and acquire one, and so on until the ninetieth generation, which would have a hundred vertebræ. Such a thing might happen, according to the evolutionist; but I do not believe any such thing ever did happen.

But no evolutionist has ever shown how or why the offspring happen to resemble one or both of their parents. In brief, the mechanism of heredity is wholly unknown. The evolutionist tells us that “heredity and adaptation” have evolved all the species of animal and plant. Having done this, he appears to think that he has explained all the phenomena of reproduction, heredity and life. But his solution of the vital equation contains an unknown quantity, namely: “heredity;” and it is, therefore, no solution at all.

The evolutionist and materialist maintain that the blind unthinking atoms and cells, of which the embryo body is made, do, spontaneously and automatically, without the aid or guidance of any extraneous, psychic or creative force, group themselves into the chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements, which are necessary to build up the embryo body with all its organs and parts—its brain, eyes, ears, heart, lungs, etc. This is the most preposterous of all their propositions.

I have worked out this proposition:

“Intellect, memory, will-power, force and motion are necessary to group two or more atoms into a prescribed chemical combination; or into a specified mechanical arrangement.”

Thus, if the reader were required to group ten silver dollars into a triangle with three dollars in each side and one in the center, he must have intellect to understand the nature and properties of a triangle; and to know how to construct it; and to know when it is completed; must have memory to bear these things in mind while doing the work; must have will-power to begin and continue the work until it is completed; must generate such force and produce such motions as are necessary to assemble and group the coins into the prescribed figure.

Can the reader discover any flaw in this proposition?

There is no trace of the coming embryo in the germ-cell (fertilized ovum); nor of any organ or part of it. It follows that each embryo and every organ and part of it must be made, anew, of fresh materials; that the atoms and cells of which it is composed must be selected, assembled and grouped into the chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements which are necessary to construct the embryo body and each organ and part of it; each organ and part of it being a new combination of its component atoms and cells.

Intellect, memory, will-power, force and motion—supernatural, psychic and creative force—are necessary to make each embryo body and every organ and part of it. Let us suppose that a hundred million silver dollars were coined last year, at the mint in Philadelphia. It is clear that each of these coins was made, anew; that it was a new combination of the atoms of silver and copper contained in it; that it required the same work to make each of them, that it did to make every other—the same to make the last that it did to make the first. The same is true of each man and woman.

The purpose of this little work is to present some of the facts, and make some of the arguments, which tend to prove that each human being is a new, direct and special creation by Almighty God!

Noble Smithson.

Knoxville, Tennessee.
Nov. 1, 1911.

Sec. 1. Personal God

I believe there is a personal God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe. If this is not true, matter, force and the motion of matter constitute the Universe. There is no middle ground between these two propositions.

The first animal that ever lived on our earth was directly and specially made by the Creator; or it arose by spontaneous generation from inorganic matter. How else could it come into existence? The same is true of the first plant. Which of these two theories is most reasonable?

Every human being that ever lived was either directly and specially made by the Creator; or the blind unthinking atoms and cells of which his body was, and is, composed, spontaneously and automatically grouped themselves into the chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements necessary to build up his body. How else could a human body be made? Which hypothesis is most plausible?

Can we believe that intellect, memory and will are merely properties of matter, like length, breadth, thickness and weight; or are these faculties the attributes of a spiritual entity?

I believe that the Creator has been manifesting His knowledge, wisdom, power and goodness ever since the first man appeared on the earth; that He has been performing miracles before the eyes of men during all this time; that He has been speaking to mankind through these manifestations and miracles throughout the ages. But they have failed to read His messages.

Most educated persons are familiar with the phenomena of life, reproduction and heredity. But the real question is: whether the Creator causes these phenomena, or whether the blind, unthinking atoms and cells, of which the body is composed, produce them, spontaneously and automatically, without the aid of any extraneous psychic or creative force. The fact that these phenomena are manifested, and the cause of them, are two wholly different things. Everybody knows that a stone falls to the ground, but nobody knows why.

Sec. 2. Whence and Whither

Has man descended from worms, fishes, lizards, opossums, hedgehogs and apes as Haeckel says? Is he a son of an ape? No! A Son of God!

Does death annihilate both soul and body; or does the soul live after the death of the body? Shall we see and know our children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and friends after death? Shall we enjoy forever, the society of the good, the true and the beautiful? Shall we be free from want, pain and sorrow? Shall we be happy throughout eternity? This is my belief and hope!

Darwin (Origin of Species, vol. 1, p. 228) says: “Have we any right to suppose that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man?” On the same page he refers to “the works of the Creator” as being superior to those of man. In the same work (vol. 2, p. 304) he refers to “the laws impressed on matter by the Creator.” Again (p. 306) he refers to life as “having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one,” animal, at the beginning of life on the earth. In his Descent of Man (p. 95) he says: “There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of the omnipotent God.” Referring to the question: “Whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe.” On the same page he says: “And this has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.” In the same work (p. 627) he says: “The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long continued culture.” On the same page he says: “Few persons feel any anxiety from the impossibility of determining at what precise period, in the development of the individual, from the first trace of a minute germinal vesicle, man becomes an immortal being.” Again (pp. 627-628) he says: “The birth, both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a conclusion.” Thus it appears that Darwin believed in the existence of a personal God and in the immortality of the human soul. But he also believed “that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world” have been “due to secondary causes, like these determining the birth and death of the individual.” (Origin of Species, 2, p. 304.) In brief, Darwin maintained that the Creator directly and specially made one or a few primordial forms, and turned them loose upon the earth to shift for themselves, subject to the “factors of evolution.”

Although Darwin appears to believe in the special creation of the first one, or the first few, animals and plants, and in the immortality of the human soul, yet his theory of evolution is highly materialistic; and the publication of this Origin of Species gave materialism an immense impetus.

The Encyclopedia Britannica (9 ed., vol. 2, p. 109), referring to “thinkers, who hold materialistic views,” says:

“According to this school, man is a machine, no doubt the most complex and wonderfully adapted of all known machines, but still neither more nor loss than an instrument whose energy is provided by force from without, and which, when set in action performs the various operations, for which its structure fits it, namely: to live, move, feel and think.”

The materialist maintains that there is no substance in man, which is alone conscious, distinct and separable from the body; that matter is the only substance in existence; and that matter and its motions constitute the universe. (Cent. Dic. 5, p. 3658.) This work, on the same page quotes J. Fisk (Evolutionist, p. 277) as saying that “Philosophical materialism holds that matter, and the motions of matter, make up the sum total of existence; and that what we know as psychical phenomena in man and other animals, are to be interpreted, in an ultimate analysis as simply the peculiar aspect, which is assumed by certain enormously complicated motions of matter.” (Cent. Dic. 5, p. 3658)

According to this view, if one should meet a friend, the sight of him would set certain atoms in his eyes and brain in motion; and these atoms would inform the Ego that the man is his friend, Smith or Jones.

So, if one be required to find the square root of 3,600, his eyes or ears would see or hear the problem; and the sight or hearing of it would set certain atoms in motion; and by this motion they would ascertain that 60 is the square root required. But the theory is too absurd for discussion, in this place.

I assume that every evolutionist is logically a materialist. Referring to “Man and the rest of the living world,” Huxley, (Man’s Place, etc., p. 151), says:

“I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of nature’s great progression, from the formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from the blind force to conscious intellect and will.”

So far as I know he does not mention the Creator nor the human soul in any of his works; but he strenuously maintains that man is a son of an ape; and believes that all the phenomena of life are the result of chemical and mechanical forces.

Herbert Spencer does not use the word “God,” “Creator” nor “Soul” in the index to his Principles of Biology; but after discussing the theory of special creation at length, he says:

“The hypothesis of special creation turns out to be worthless by its derivation; worthless in its incoherence; absolutely without evidence; worthless as not supplying an intellectual need, worthless as not supplying a moral want.” (Principles of Biology 1, p. 430.)

This quotation is full of bosh and nonsense. For example: In the same book (pp. 415-416), referring to the hypothesis of special creation and to that of evolution, Spencer says:

“Both hypotheses imply a cause. The last, certainly as much as the first, recognizes this cause as inscrutable. The point at issue is, how this inscrutable cause has worked, in the production of living forms. This point, if it is to be decided at all, is to be decided only by examination of evidence.”

The word “inscrutable” is synonymous with “impenetrable,” “undiscoverable,” “incomprehensible,” “unsearchable,” “mysterious.” (Cent. Dic. 4, p. 3114.)

Now, if the Cause which produces animals and plants is impenetrable, incomprehensible, etc., Spencer could not possibly know whether each animal and plant is directly and specially made by the Creator or not; nor could he say, logically, that there is no evidence of special creation; for he admits that the Cause is “inscrutable” to him. But there is abundant evidence that each animal and plant is a new direct and special creation, for the obvious reason that no other hypothesis can explain and account for the admitted facts.

Haeckel, (Evolution of Man, p. 26), says the first one, or the first few, animals that appeared on our earth arose “by spontaneous generation from inorganic matter.” On the same page he says:

“Life is only a physical phenomenon. All the plants and animals, with man at their head, are to be explained in structure and life, by mechanical or efficient causes, without any appeal to final causes, just as in the case of minerals and other inorganic bodies. This applies equally to the origin of the various species. We must not assume any original creation … to explain this, but a natural, continuous and necessary evolution.”

Prior to the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, belief in the theory of special creation was well nigh universal among scientists as well as laymen. But immediately after the publication of that work the scientific world accepted Darwin’s theory as absolute truth, not only as to animals and plants, but extended the Darwinian principle of materialism to all other branches of science. Materialism permeated all literature and became a fad. It fostered “higher criticism,” agnosticism, infidelity and atheism. It destroyed human hope and enthroned despair. It shook and rent the church from the corner stone to the spire.

According to the materialist, there is no such thing as a personal God, nor a human soul. He maintains that life, intellect, memory and will-power are mere properties of the human body as a physical structure; and that death works the absolute annihilation of the body and the Ego. In his view, there is no life, punishment nor pleasure after death. He, therefore, resolves to make the most of his life, and to get all the ease, comfort and pleasure that it affords, without regard to anything that may happen after death. He has no fear of any final judgment, nor of God. He is not restrained by any moral law, nor by any religious obligation. He fears nothing but publicity, public opinion, and the criminal statutes. Hence, lying, cheating, fraud, perjury, theft, robbery, murder, suicide.

I admit that heredity, environment and other forces, which the evolutionist denominates, “the factors of organic evolution,” may affect, modify, or differentiate an animal or a plant, or its organs and parts, to a certain extent. But I deny that heredity, environment or any, or all, the “factors” combined, are adequate to evolve a new species of animal or plant; or even a new organ or part of one. On the contrary I maintain that heredity, environment and all other factors of evolution combined, are inadequate to produce a single animal or plant, without the aid of the Creator; and that each animal and plant is a new, direct and special creation by Almighty God.

In this little work, I shall make an humble effort to prove that there is a living personal God; that He directly and specially creates each human being; makes its body and endows it with life and with an immortal soul. If the reader shall think that I have made a creditable effort to accomplish this purpose, I shall have done my fellow man a good service by pointing the way to hope and happiness.

Sec. 3. Chemical Elements Composing the Human Body

“Of the elements known to chemists,” says Professor Martin, “only sixteen have been found to take part in the formation of the human body. These are (1) calcium, (2) carbon, (3) chlorine, (4) fluorine, (5) hydrogen, (6) iron, (7) lithium, (8) magnesium, (9) manganese, (10) nitrogen, (11) oxygen, (12) phosphorus, (13) potassium, (14) silicon, (15) sodium, and (16) sulphur. Copper and lead have sometimes been found in small quantities, but are probably accidental and occasional.” (Martin, Human Body, p. 7.)

It is clear that neither the nature nor the properties of these elementary substances, are changed by the fact that such substance has become a part of the body. For example, iron is iron whether in or out of the body.

It is probable that the chemical composition of the human body is substantially the same as that of the body of every other mammal.

Sec. 4. Atoms

The words “atom” and “atoms” will be often used in the following pages. Therefore, it is deemed proper to state the nature and properties of an atom, so far as known. It is defined as: “An extremely minute particle of matter; a hypothetical particle of matter, so minute as to admit of no division; an ultimate indivisible particle of matter. (Cent. Dic. 1, p. 365.) The Encyclopedia Britannica says: “Atom is a body which cannot be cut in two. The Atomic theory is a theory of the constitution of bodies, which asserts that they are made up of atoms.” (Encyc. Brit. 3, p. 36.) A molecule is the smallest mass of any substance, which is capable of existing in a separate form; that is the smallest part, into which the substance can be divided without destroying its chemical identity. A molecule of any substance is conceived of as made up of two or more atoms. (Cent. Dic. 5, p. 3822.)

In biology a cell is defined, first, as the fundamental form-element of every organized body. Secondly, as a nucleated, capsulated form element of any structure or tissue; one of the protoplasmic bodies, which build up an animal fabric; a body consisting of cell-substance, cell-wall and cell-nucleus, as bone-cell, etc. (Cent. Dic. 1, p. 878.) The body of every animal and plant is made of cells; and each cell is composed of many atoms.

For a full discussion of “The Atomic Theory,” see Encyc. Brit. 3, pp. 36-49, (9th ed.); New Int. Encyc. 13, pp. 683-685.

Sec. 5. Cells and Cell Theory

In Biology, the word “cell” denotes the fundamental form-element of every organized body. It is a bioplastic mass of protoplasm, varying in size and shape, generally of microscopic dimensions, capable, under proper conditions, of performing the functions of sensation, nutrition, reproduction and automatic or spontaneous motion, and constituting in itself an entire organism, or being capable of entering into the structure of one.

Such a cell, as a rule, has a nucleus and is usually also provided with a wall or definite boundary; but neither cell-nucleus nor cell-wall necessarily enters into its structure. In ultimate morphological analysis, all organized tissue is resolvable into cells or cell products. See “[Protoplasm],” and “[Cell Theory],” infra.

Specifically, the word “cell” denotes a nucleated capsulated form-element of any structure or tissue one of the independent protoplasmic bodies which build up an animal fabric. A body consisting of cell substances, cell-wall and cell-nucleus, as bone cells, cartilage-cells, muscle-cells, nerve-cells, fat-cells, cells of connective tissue, of mucous and serous membrane, etc., of the blood, lymph, etc. This is the usual character of cells in animals, and is the ordinary technical anatomical sense of the word.

“However complicated one of the higher animals or plants may be,” says Huxley, “it begins its separate existence under the form of a nucleated cell.”—Huxley, Anatomy Invert. An. p. 19.

See Haeckel, Ev. Man, chap. 6. “Ovum and amœba,” pp. 36-50; Spencer, Principles, Biology, Index, “Cell,” 2 p. 630; Romanes, Darwin, etc., 1, pp. 104-134; Encyc. Brit. 12, pp. 5-10, “Histology;” New Int. Encyc. 4, p. 400.

Professor McMurrich, of the University of Michigan, says:

“It has been estimated that the number of cells entering into the composition of the body of an adult human being is about twenty-six million five hundred thousand million.” (McMurrich, Development, Human Body, p. 18.) This number is equivalent to twenty-six and a half trillions.

The “cell theory” is the doctrine that the bodies of all animals and plants consist, either of a cell, or of a number of cells, and their products; and that all cells proceed from cells, as expressed in the phrase omnis cellula e cellula: a doctrine foreshadowed by Kasper Freidrich Wolff, who died in 1794, and by Karl Ernst Von Baer (born 1792.) It was established in botany by Schleiden in 1838, and in zoology by Theodor Schwann about 1839.

Its complete form, including the ovum, as a simple cell, also, is the basis of the present state of the biological sciences.—Cent. Dic. 1, p. 879, col. 1.

Sec. 6. Protoplasm

Protoplasm is an albuminoid substance, ordinarily resembling the white of an egg, consisting of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen in extremely complex and unstable molecular combination, and capable, under proper conditions, of manifesting certain vital phenomena, as spontaneous motion, sensation, assimilation, and reproduction, thus constituting the physical basis of life of all plants and animals; sarcode. It is essential to the nature of protoplasm that the substance consist chemically of the four elements named (with or without a trace of some other elements); but the molecule is so highly compounded that these elements may be present in somewhat different proportions in different cases, so that the chemical formula is not always the same. The name has also been somewhat loosely applied to albuminous substances widely different in some physical properties, as density or fluidity. Thus the hard material of so-called vegetable ivory and the soft body of an amœba are both protoplasmic. The physiological activities of protoplasm are manifested in its irritability, or ready response to external stimuli, as well as its inherent capacity of spontaneous movement and other indications of life; so that the least particle of this substance may be observed to go through the whole cycle of vital functions. Protoplasm builds up every vegetable and animal fabric, it is itself devoid of discernible histological structure. It is ordinarily colorless and transparent, or nearly so, and of glairy or viscid semi-fluid consistency, as is well seen in the bodies of foraminifers, amœbæ, and other of the lowest forms of animal life. Such protoplasm (originally named sarcode) when not confined by an investing membrane, has the power of extension in any direction in the form of temporary processes capable of being withdrawn again; and it has also the characteristic property of streaming in minute masses through closed membranes without the loss of the identity of such masses. An individuated mass of protoplasm, generally of microscopic size with or without a nucleus and a wall, constitutes a cell, which may be the whole body of an organism, or the structural unit of aggregation of a multicellular animal or plant. The ovum of any creature consists of protoplasm, and all the tissues of the most complex living organisms result from the multiplication, differentiation, and specialization of such protoplasmic cell-units. The life of the organism, as a whole, consists in the continuous waste and repair of the protoplasmic material of its cells. No animal, however, can elaborate protoplasm directly from the chemical elements of that substance. The manufacture of protoplasm is a function of the vegetable kingdom. Plants make it directly from mineral compounds and from the atmosphere under the influence of the sun’s light and heat, thus becoming the store-house of food-stuff for the animal kingdom.—(See Cent. Dic. 6, p. 4799.)

Hence this substance, known in Vegetable Physiology as protoplasm, but often referred to by zoölogists as sarcode, has been appropriately designated by Professor Huxley “the physical Basis of Life.”—(W. B. Carpenter, Micros, sec. 219.)

For the whole living world, then, it results that the morphological unit—the primary and fundamental form of life—is merely an individual mass of protoplasm, in which no further structure is discernible.—(Huxley, Anat. Invert., p. 18.)

See Spencer, Principles Biology I, p. 63-67. Encyc. Brit. 19, p. 828-830; New Int. Encyc. 16, p. 471-472. Haeckel, Ev. Man, pp. 36-50; “Ovum and Amœba.”

Sec. 7. Human Body is a Compound Physical Structure Built of Cells

The human body and every organ, part and cell in it, has length, breadth, thickness and weight, like a brick or stone. So, every such body and every organ and part of it is built of material substances as completely as are the foundation, walls, roof and other parts of a brick house. The body, as a whole, and every organ and part of it, has every property and attribute of a physical structure; and all the materials of which the body is built up, except the germ-cell (or fertilized ovum), were dead matter before they were assimilated and incorporated into it. So, all the materials, of which such a body is built up, are selected, assembled, grouped together and put into position in the body in the same manner that bricks, or blocks of stone are gathered up and put into position in a building, but by different forces and other means.

But there is a marked difference between the process of building a house, engine, or other inanimate structure, on the one hand, and the body of the human embryo on the other. The wood, clay, iron and other materials used in the construction of the former are found ready to hand; and they are cut, sawed, burned, molded, or hammered, by man, into the proper size, form and condition for use in the construction of the building or machine; and are carried, by him, to the place, at which the building or machine is to be constructed. He then places these materials in such positions as to build up and complete the building or machine.

On the other hand the materials of which the body of the human embryo is built, are carried by the blood of the mother to their proper places in the body; and different portions of the same raw material, namely: the mother’s blood, are then differentiated and specialized into bones, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, and other tissues, which go to make up the human body.

These bones, muscles, nerves, etc., are all new creations, independent of those of the mother, father or any other human being that ever lived. Except the tiny germ-cell, which is less than one-trillionth part of the infant, at birth, they are built of atoms that never formed any part of any other human body. The human body is not only a compound physical structure, consisting of hundreds of bones, hundreds of muscles, arteries, veins, etc., and of trillions of cells; and of many organs, as the brain, heart, lungs, etc., but each of its tissues and each of its organs and parts has its own chemical composition and its own mechanical arrangement, peculiar to itself. For example, all the bones are composed of phosphate of lime, carbonate of lime and other elements peculiar to the bony tissue. Again, the atoms (cells) in each bone are mechanically arranged in a manner peculiar to that bone. Thus, the atoms in the bones of the skull are so arranged as to make them flat and curved, with an inner and outer plate; those in the other bones are so arranged as to make them long and cylindrical (arms and legs); others short (hands and feet); others flat and curved (ribs); others with complex forms (vertebræ), and so on. The muscular, vascular and nervous tissues are each composed of chemical elements peculiar to themselves; and their atoms are so arranged, mechanically, as to form the muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, etc.

The human body is not only a compound physical structure, with all these tissues, organs, cells, etc., but life is added to all the other wonderful properties, which it possesses.

Now, the chemical elements, which compose the bones, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, etc., either assemble, automatically, and group themselves, chemically, and at the same time, automatically, arrange themselves, mechanically, in such a manner as to form the bones, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, brain, heart, lungs, stomach, etc., without the aid of any extraneous psychic or creative force, or this wonderful work is done by the Creator, Himself. Which hypothesis is most plausible?

But this is not all. Each organ and part of the body is adjusted to, and correlated with, every other organ and part of it. For example, the heart and lungs are so arranged as to work together. What force or agency selected, assembled and grouped the chemical elements, which compose the heart, then arranged these atoms in such a manner as to form the heart with chambers, valves, etc.? How did it happen that the elements, which compose the lungs, were assembled, grouped and arranged so as to form them with their complex machinery. Are these things the work of blind unthinking cells or of the Creator?

It is inconceivable that the germ-cell (fertilized ovum), the mother’s blood or any atom of it has intellect, memory or will-power. It would be absurd nonsense to suppose that the atoms, of which bones, muscles, nerves, etc., are composed automatically, and of their own motion, differentiated themselves into bones, muscles, nerves, etc., and then grouped themselves together, mechanically, in such manner as to form the bones, muscles, nerves, etc., then fitted themselves together as we find them in the body of the infant at birth.

The properties and characteristics of the human body, as a physical structure, are not altered nor affected by the fact that it is composed of live tissues, such as bones, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, etc., and of live organs as the brain, heart, lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys, etc., for the body and every organ and part of it has the same length, breadth, thickness, and weight, whether living or dead, at least, until disintegration sets in. In brief, the living human body has identically the same physical properties and characteristics that an inanimate body would have, if the latter were composed of the same chemical elements, combined in the same proportions and mechanically arranged in the same manner and kept at the same temperature, as that of the human body; and the body merely has life, intellect, memory and will-power added to its physical properties and characteristics.

Nor do the atoms and cells, nor the organs and parts, of which the body is composed, except the brain, have any more intellect, memory and will-power than so many grains of sand, or so many bricks. For example: Every man knows that neither his bones, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, eyes, ears, nose, arms, hands, legs, feet, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, nor his kidneys have any intellectual powers whatever.

Every man knows that the infant, at birth, has no conscious intellect, memory, nor will-power. It is, therefore, absurd to suppose that the embryo has any power or control over its own development and growth. It is equally clear that the mother has no direct power nor control over its growth.

So, every man knows that his I, ego, or self has no power, nor any control over any part of his body except his brain and voluntary muscles. For example, no man can determine his complexion; nor the color of his hair; nor of his eyes; nor the length of his nose, nor his feet; nor the size of his head. These facts prove, conclusively, that the Creator generates, guides and controls the forces which build up the embryo body.

Sec. 8. Human Body is a Complex Animal Machine

The human soul knows, feels and wills. It resides in the brain and governs the body by means of the brain and nerves; the stomach digests the food and makes nutriment for the body; the heart pumps the blood to and from the several parts of it, the arteries and veins carry the blood from the heart and back to it; the blood carries fresh building materials to every part of the body, and gathers up, and carries waste matter back to the heart and lungs; the lungs purify and enliven the blood; the liver secretes bile and cleanses the blood; the muscles and bones move the body and every part of it; the nerves carry messages from the brain to every part of the body and from every other part to the brain; the kidneys and other organs perform their functions; the work of all these organs being necessary to keep the body in good working order. The brain, stomach, heart, arteries, veins, lungs, blood, muscles, bones, kidneys, etc., may each be considered as a complex animal machine, designed and constructed to perform its special functions.

The body, as a whole, is an animal machine, which does much work peculiar to itself.

The functions of all organs other than those of the brain and voluntary muscles are performed by them, independently of the will. In other words: all the organs of the body except the brain and the voluntary muscles appear to act automatically as an automatic machine does. For example, the stomach, heart, lungs, liver and kidneys appear to do their work as automatic machines, independently of the will; nor has man any direct control, nor power over the work of any of his organs except that of the brain and voluntary muscles. Thus, he cannot directly compel his stomach to digest his food; nor has he any direct control over the action of his heart, nor over that of his lungs; nor can he directly compel his liver to secrete bile. All he can do is to take medicine or some other substance into his stomach, and thence into his blood to stimulate, reduce, or modify the action of his organs; or change his environment.

No male has any direct control nor any voluntary agency in the formation of spermatozoä in his genital organs; nor has any female any control over, nor any voluntary part in, the formation of eggs in her ovaries. In fact fully ninety-nine per cent of mankind are wholly ignorant of the existence of spermatozoä and ova (eggs), having no knowledge, whatever, of the mechanism by which their own offspring are brought into being.

What are we to infer from these facts? Can we believe that the functions of the heart and other involuntary muscles do their work, automatically, without the aid of any extraneous psychic force? Can we believe that the mysterious spermatozoön, and ovum are produced in the genital organs of the male and female, without their knowledge and without the aid of any psychic or creative force, whatever? Is it possible for the atoms of which each spermatozoön is composed, to assemble and group themselves, automatically into it without the aid of a supernatural psychic and creative force? In another section of this work, I have argued that each spermatozoön is a new, direct and special creation. The same is true of each ovum. I believe that the same psychic and creative force which generates, guides and controls the forces, that build up the body of the embryo, continues to generate, guide and control many of the forces which affect the human body during its whole life. I believe that the same force determines the growth and waste of cells; and by this means fixes the size of each normal body. Why does an elephant grow larger than a mouse; an ox larger than a man; an eagle larger than a humming bird? How does it happen that all men, elephants, mice, eagles, etc., are of substantially the same size?

It is clear that neither man nor an other animal, has any control over the growth of cells in his body, nor over his own size. The cells of which these bodies are built up, have no intellect, memory nor will-power. It would be impossible for them to know when a sufficient number of cells have been made to bring these bodies to their proper sizes. The cells have no power to control their production nor their waste. It follows that the Creator must govern and control the forces, which produce the cells in each animal body; and that he fixes within certain limits, the form and size of each body.

Sec. 9. Human Body is Constructed on a Definite and Specific Plan

Every bone, joint, process, muscle, nerve, artery, vein and part has its own chemical composition, form, size, structure and position in the body. Each normal human body has the same tissues, organs and parts, that every other such body has; the form, structure, organs and parts of all normal bodies being identically the same.

If the so-called factors of evolution were at work in every age and in every part of the earth, as maintained by the evolutionist, we would surely find variations and diversities in the form and structure of the bodies of men in different ages and countries; for we know that the environments of the different varieties of man differ very greatly in time and space. For example, the eskimos live all their lives in the frozen regions at the North, while the inhabitants of the tropics spend their lives under a blazing sun; yet there is no anatomical difference between the body of an Eskimo and that of a Cuban.

What is the inference to be drawn from these facts? The evolutionist and the naturalist say that the facts imply that all men have descended from a common ancestor, that each individual inherits, from his parents, every organ and part of his body, that “like begets like.” They maintain that the law of heredity has produced the uniformity of size, form, features, organs and parts, which we discover among all men, all over the world. No doubt this is the belief of more than ninety-nine (99) per cent of mankind.

But this belief is manifestly erroneous for the following reasons: (1) Whatever passes from the parents to the child is transmitted by and through the fertilized ovum; (2) this ovum is short-lived; it has no brain, eyes, ears, nose, touch nor taste; no intellect, memory nor will-power; nor inherent power to produce the embryo body; nor to endow such a body with life; nor to create a human soul; (3) each embryo body grows, anew, for itself, without regard to the development and growth of its parents or any other ancestor; and it is a new chemical combination and a new mechanical arrangement of the atoms of which it is composed; (4) each chemical combination of atoms in an embryo body is made according to a prescribed chemical formula; and each mechanical arrangement of atoms in such a body is made according to a specific plan; in other words the chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements of atoms, in each embryo body, are identically the same as those in every other such body; (5) conscious intellect, memory, will-power, force and motion are necessary to combine two or more atoms chemically, according to a prescribed formula and to group two or more atoms, mechanically, according to a specific plan; (6) Hence, we are compelled to believe that every human body is a new, direct and special creation by Almighty God.

Sec. 10. Human Body is Unique and Peculiar

Each normal human body resembles every other such body, in form, size, and structure; in chemical elements, organs and parts. But it differs from every other in these particulars: (1) The atoms of which it is composed are exclusively its own; (2) it is a new combination of these atoms; (3) it grew anew, for itself, separately and apart from, and independent of, every other such body; (4) the forces and motions, which produced it, were peculiar to it, in origin, time and space.

See Cent. Dic. Supplement, “A-L,” p. 582. “Heredity;” Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 24, p. 818, “Variation.”

Sec. 11. Force and Motion

Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion is written in these words:

“Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it is compelled, by force, to change that state.”—(Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 15, p. 676, “Mechanics.”)

“Energy may be defined,” says the Britannica, “as the power of doing work, or of overcoming resistance. A bent spring possesses energy, for it is capable of doing work in returning to its natural form; a charge of gun powder possesses energy for it is capable of doing work in exploding; a Leyden jar, charged with electricity possesses energy, for it is capable of doing work in being discharged.”—(Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 8, pp. 205-206, “Energy.”)

“Force is that which affects the motion of matter.”—(Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 7, p. 581, “Dynamics.”)

“The conclusion, which appears inevitable,” it says on another page, “is that whatever matter may be the other reality in the physical universe, energy, which is never found unassociated with matter, depends, in all its widely varied forms upon motion of matter.” (Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 15, p. 748, “Mechanics.”)

The sense of the above quotation is this: There are two realities in the physical universe: (1) matter, whatever it may be; (2) energy, which is always associated with matter. Energy “depends, in all its varied forms, upon motion of matter.” For example, let us suppose that we have three balls, designated as A, B, C, resting on a table in a straight line, one inch apart. Suppose that I strike A and drive it against B, that B strikes and moves C. In this case my arm moves and generates energy or force, which moves A against B, and B against C. The motion of my arm is the force which moves A; the motion of A is the force which moves B, and the motion of B is the force which moves C. Thus, we have demonstrated that energy or force generates motion; and that motions produces force; that is, that each is convertible into the other.

“Motion” is defined as “change of place; transition from one point or position in space to another; continuous variation of position.” (Cent. Dic. 5, p. 3872.)

Every human being begins life as a fertilized ovum, which is about as large as one-sixth of a pin’s head. At birth, an infant weighs from five to nine pounds, the average weight being six and one-half pounds. (New International Encyc. 7, p. 775.) It is then millions of times larger than a fertilized ovum. In other words: millions of atoms have been selected, assembled, chemically combined and mechanically arranged and grouped in such a manner as to form the body of a living infant, which is a complete miniature model of the body of a man or woman.

It is obvious that the materials of which the embryo body is built up, except the fertilized ovum, are derived from the food eaten by the mother; that her heart and arteries generate the forces and produce the motions which carry the materials to the building site of the embryo, just as the builder assembles the bricks, stones, sand, lime, lumber, nails and other materials to build a house.

The embryo body is a compound physical structure built of cells, as a house is built of bricks. The atoms and cells, of which it is composed, are subject to all the laws of force and motion, to the same extent, and in the same manner that bricks are. Nor have they any more intellect, memory nor will-power than a brick has.

Perhaps the first thing that an infant does, after birth, is to breathe. In order to do this, air must be forced into, and out of its lungs. To enable the heart to beat, its auricles must dilate and take the blood into it; and its ventricles must contract and force the blood out of it, and into the arteries. So that every time one breathes, and every time one’s heart beats, force is exerted and motion of air and blood is produced. Every time one takes a drink of water or a bite of bread he must exert sufficient force to raise it, and produce sufficient motion to bring it to his mouth. Every time one takes a step he exerts sufficient force and produces sufficient motion to move his body the distance that he steps. For example, suppose that A, weighing two hundred pounds, gets on an electric street car and rides a mile. It is obvious that the electric motor has exerted sufficient force and produced sufficient motion of A’s body to move two hundred pounds, the distance of a mile. Now, if A had walked along the same railway track the same distance, it is clear that he would have exerted the same force and produced the same motion of his body that the motor did.

We eat, drink, speak, move, act, work, live—do everything by force and motion. When they cease, death comes.

Everything that a man can do with a physical body is resolvable into force and motion. He may move a body from one place to another; he may group two or more bodies together; or he may take two or more bodies apart; or he may cut or break a body into two or more parts. But, at last, all of these operations are equivalent to moving one or more bodies from one place to another, by force and motion.

A sewing machine, adding machine, watch, steam engine, and every other machine is constructed by force and motion. Every piece of music is sung or played by force and motion. Every painting is made by grouping two or more pigments (colors) together in a particular manner by force and motion.

Intellect, memory and will-power are necessary to produce two or more forces and motions in a prescribed order and within a given time. For example, each note in a piece of music requires, for its production, a certain force and peculiar motion (vibration) of cord, pipe or string within a certain time. It is obvious that intellect, memory and will-power are necessary to sing or play any piece of music. Before anyone can speak any given word he must have intellect, memory and will-power: (1) he must know the word to be uttered, (2) he must remember it until it is uttered, (3) he must have the will-power necessary to exert the force and produce the motion of air necessary to utter it. Let the reader speak the words: “earth,” “air,” “fire,” “water,” and analyze the process.

Intellect, memory and will-power are necessary to generate, guide, and control the forces and motions required to make a watch or any other compound machine or structure, within a given time. Suppose that a watchmaker is required to make each spring, wheel and part of a watch by hand, to put every part in its place and start it to running on or about the 280th day after he begins the work. (Haeckel Ev. Man, p. 199.) To do this work he must have intellect, memory and will-power to generate, guide, and control and time the forces and motions which are necessary to make each part of the watch and to fit and group them together when completed. He must know and remember every part of it; remember the material of which it is made; remember its form and size; compare each piece with the pattern; remember the time in which he is to do the work. He must have the will-power to begin and continue the work until it is done, doing such part of it each day as to complete it on or about the day fixed.

But the forces and motions, which build up the body of the embryo, work in the dark without brain or sense-organs. To put the watchmaker on the same basis with the Creator, we will have to suppose that the watchmaker is blind and has no sense of touch. Would it be possible for him to make a watch under these conditions?

The mother’s food is taken into her mouth, chewed and mixed with saliva and passes into her stomach. Here it is mixed with gastric juice and converted into chyme. It then passes into the small intestine (duodenum) where it is mixed with pancreatic secretion, bile and “the secretion of the glands Brunner and the Crypts of Lieberkühn” and thus converted into chyle. Most of the “nutritive constituents” of the chyle pass through the epithelium of the small intestines into the subjacent blood and lymphatic vessels and are carried off. Those passing into the blood capillaries are taken by the portal vein to the liver; while those entering the lacteals are carried into the left jugular vein by the thoracic duct. (Martin, Human Body, pp. 361-377.)

This is a very brief outline of the processes, by which the food, one eats is converted into blood and passes into the arteries and veins.

The embryo at first, has no heart, arteries, nor veins. After its body has developed and grown to a certain extent, the mother’s heart and arteries carry arterial blood to it through the “umbilical vein.” This blood finally reaches the heart of the embryo, and is carried by its heart and arteries to every part of its body, then returned through “two umbilical arteries” and the placenta to the veins of the mother. In this way, the embryo has a sort of circulation of its own. But it appears to have no independent circulation during the first three or four months of its life; and the blood which circulates through it must be aerated or oxygenated in the mother’s lungs.

We may say, in general terms, that the mother’s heart and arteries exert all the force and produce all the motion which build up the embryo. It is true that the work of her heart and arteries is supplemented, after a time, by that of the heart and arteries of the embryo but the latter work is a small part of the whole.

The water in a stream runs from its head to its mouth because the latter is nearer to the center of the earth than the former. In other words, the water in every stream is carried forward by the force of gravitation. The water in a stream carries silt (mud, fine earth, etc.) which is deposited along its course and at its mouth. As already stated, the mother’s blood is carried to the embryo body by the force of her heart and arteries. Her blood conveys to the embryo, the materials of which it is built up, as the water in a stream carries silt to its mouth. Her blood has no more intellect, memory nor will-power than the water in a stream.

If a portion of the silt at the mouth of the Mississippi should be deposited at its mouth in the form of a colossal man, showing his head, neck, body, arms, legs, hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc., it would be considered a great miracle. But the formation of the embryo body in the womb of its mother, with all its organs and parts is far more miraculous than the formation of the silt man of the Mississippi would be.

The reader may reply that the atoms of which the embryo is built up are not merely deposited but they are absorbed by the fertilized ovum and its daughter-cells, and converted into new cells; that these cells are chemically combined and differentiated and mechanically arranged in such a manner as to form the embryo body, etc. True; but force and motion are necessary to produce new cells, to make the necessary chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements; and these forces and motions must be generated, guided and controlled by a Being possessed of a conscious intellect, memory, will-power and creative force.

Sec. 12. Intellect, Memory and Will-power are Necessary, When

Conscious intellect, memory and will-power are necessary to generate, guide and control the force and motion employed in the construction of a compound physical structure, whatever its form or size may be.

Each spermatozoön is composed of myriads of atoms. The atoms of each are chemically combined and mechanically arranged in the same manner that those in every other are, all spermatozoä being identical in chemical composition, mechanical arrangement, form and size. The same is true of each ovum and fertilized ovum, and of the atoms in them, respectively, vice versa. So each embryo is composed of myriads of cells, the cells in each having identically the same chemical composition and mechanical arrangement that those in every other embryo of the same age and sex have; all embryos of the same age and sex having substantially the same chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements of their cells, organs and parts. It follows that each human spermatozoön, ovum, fertilized ovum and embryo, of the same age and sex is constructed according to certain prescribed “plans and specifications.”

We are, therefore, compelled to assume that the force and motion necessary to construct the spermatozoön, ovum, fertilized ovum and embryo are generated, guided and controlled by a Being with full knowledge of the “plans and specifications,” of the chemical elements, their affinities and combinations, of mechanical arrangements, etc. The Architect must know the “plans and specifications;” must be able to compare the work of construction with them, as the work progresses; must have memory to bear in mind and recall the plans and specifications; and must have will-power to begin and continue the work until the “structure” is completed. So He must see that each organ and part attains its proper form and size at the right time; that each organ and part is properly proportioned to and correlated with, every other on each day of its growth. In other words: He must see that the forces at work, and the motions produced in each organ and part of the embryo body are proportioned to and in harmony with the forces at work and the motions produced in every other; that the development and growth of each organ and part keeps pace with those of every other. This knowledge, power and creative force belongs only to the Creator.

Sec. 13. Spermatozoön

A spermatozoön is a microscopic body contained in the semen, to which the seminal fluid owes its vitality; and which is the immediate means of impregnating or fertilizing the ovum of the female; a spermatic cell or filament; a spermatozoid. (Cent. Dic. 7, p. 5819.)

The spermatozoön is composed of protoplasm and is one of the smallest cells in the animal body. The seminal fluid is called “sperm” or “the male seed.” Sperm, like saliva or blood, is not a simple fluid, but is a thick agglomeration of innumerable cells swimming about in a comparatively small quantity of fluid. It is not the fluid, but the independent male cells, which swim in it, that cause conception. They have, as a rule, “a peculiarly lively motion.” In most animals, the spermatozoä have a very small naked body, inclosing an elongated nucleus and a long thread like tail, hanging from it. It was long before we could recognize that these structures were simple cells. We now know that the spermatozoä are nothing but simple and real cells of the kind we call “ciliated” cells, equipped with cilia or “lashes.”

The body of the spermatozoön is divided into “head,” “trunk” and “tail.” The head is merely the oval nucleus of the cell; the body or middle part is an accumulation of cell matter and the tail is a thread-like prolongation of the trunk or body. The form of the spermatozoön is not peculiar to it; cells with similar forms are found in various other parts of the body. Such forms as the spermatozoön are called caudate or tailed cells. See Haeckel, Evolution of Man, p. 52-53.

“The spermatozoä,” says Professor Martin, “are motile bodies about 1/500th of an inch in length; they have a flattened, clear body or head and a long vibratile tail or cilium; the portion of the tail nearest the head is thicker than the rest, and is known as the neck. The mode of development of a spermatozoön shows that the head is a cell-nucleus and the neck and tail a modified cell-body.”—(Martin, Human Body, p. 651.)

According to Haeckel, the spermatozoön is about 1/10,000th of an inch in diameter. See Evolution of Man, p. 53, fig. 22.

“The striking differences,” says Haeckel, “of [between] the respective cells, in size and shape … are easily explained on the principle of division of labor. The inert motionless ovum grows in size according to the quantity of provision it stores up in the form of nutritive yelk for the development of the germ. The active swimming sperm-cell is reduced in size in proportion to its need to seek the ovum and bore its way into its yelk.”—Haeckel, Evolution of Man, p. 57.

These statements appear to be true; but the work described by Haeckel, cannot be done by man nor woman; nor by their sexual organs; nor by the blind unthinking atoms which go to build up the spermatozoön and the ovum. The Creator only, can make them!

“The phenomena we have described,” he says, on another page, “can only be understood and explained by ascribing a certain lower degree of psychic activity to the sexual principles. They feel each other’s proximity and are drawn together by a sensitive impulse (probably related to smell); they move towards each other and do not rest until they fuse together.” (Haeckel, Evolution of Man, p. 58.)

There is no pretense that the spermatozoön has any brain, eyes, ears, nose, taste or touch; nor that the ovum has any such organs. Then, how can they have any “degree of psychic activity;” how can “they feel each other’s proximity;” how can “they move towards each other?” How could either know in what direction to go in order to reach the other?

It is absurd to suppose that the spermatozoön and ovum have any knowledge of each other, or of anything else; and the only reasonable hypothesis is that the Creator generates, guides, and controls the forces which bring them together and fuse them into the germ-cell.

Sec. 14. Ovum

The word ovum is defined as: “An egg in a broad biological sense; and the proper product of an ovary; the female germ or seed, which, when fertilized by the male sperm, is capable of developing into an individual like the parents.… An ovum consists of a quantity of protoplasm or cell-substance called the vitellus or yolk inclosed in a cell-wall or vitelline membrane, and provided with a nucleus and nucleolus.” (Cent. Dic. 5, p. 4212.)

“The ovum (egg) is extremely small,” says Haeckel, “being a tiny round vesicle about 1/120th of an inch in diameter; it can be seen under favorable circumstances with the naked eye as a tiny particle, but is otherwise quite invisible. This particle is formed in the ovary inside a much larger globule, which takes the name of the Graäfian follicle, from its discoverer, Graäf, and [which] had been previously regarded as the true ovum.” (Evolution of Man, chap. 3, pp. 16-17.)

“Man is developed,” says Darwin, “from an ovule (little egg) about the 1/125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals.” (Descent of Man, chap. 1, p. 9.)

“In man,” says Romanes, “as in most mammals, it (the ovum or egg-cell) is about 1/120th of an inch in diameter.” (Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin, 1, p. 120.)

Supposing the human egg to be 1/120th of an inch in diameter and an ordinary pin’s head to be 1/16th of an inch in diameter, which is about its size, the egg would be about 1/7th of the size of a pin’s head.

Haeckel says: “In the lower vertebrates the formation of ova (eggs) in the germ-epithelium of the ovary continues throughout life; but in the higher animals it is restricted to the earlier stages, or even to the period of embryonic development.

“In man it seems to cease in the first year; in the second year we find no new-formed ova (eggs) or chains of ova (Pfluger’s tubes.) However, the number of ova (eggs) in the two ovaries is very large in the young girl. There are calculated to be 72,000 in the sexually mature maiden.” (Evolution of Man, chap. 29, p. 347.)

“The human ovum,” says Haeckel, “whether fertilized, or not, cannot be distinguished from that of most other mammals. It is nearly the same everywhere, in form, size, and composition. When it is fully formed, it has a diameter of (on an average) about 1/120th of an inch. When the mammal ovum (egg) has been carefully isolated and held against the light on a glass-plate, it may be seen as a fine point even with the naked eye. The ova (eggs) of most of the higher animals are about the same size. The diameter of the ovum (egg) is almost always between 1/250th and 1/125th of an inch. It has always the same globular shape; the same characteristic membrane; the same transparent germinal vesicle with its dark germinal spot.

“Even when we use the most powerful microscope,” he continues, “with its highest power, we can detect no material difference between the ova (eggs) of man, the ape, dog, and so on. I do not mean to say that there are no differences between the ova (eggs) of these different mammals. On the contrary, we are bound to assume that there are such [differences] at least as regards chemical composition. Even the ova (eggs) of different men must differ from each other; otherwise we should not have a different individual from each ovum (egg). It is true that our crude and imperfect apparatus cannot detect these subtle individual differences which are probably in the molecular (atomic) structure.”—(Evolution of Man, chap. 6, p. 44.)

Sec. 15. Spermatozoön and Ovum are Special Creations

Each human spermatozoön is formed in the genital organs of a particular man. So each human ovum is formed in the genital organs of a particular woman. Each of them is a new chemical combination, and a new mechanical arrangement, of the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen (protoplasm) of which they are composed; which atoms are now, combined and arranged, for the first and last time, into a spermatozoön or an ovum. The atoms in a spermatozoön are chemically combined according to a prescribed formula, and mechanically arranged according to a specific plan; and the same is true of the atoms in an ovum. Each spermatozoön has the same chemical composition and the same mechanical arrangement, the same form and size, that every other has. So each ovum has the same combination and arrangement, the same form and size that every other has.

The materials, forces and motions employed in making each spermatozoön are similar to those employed in forming every other; but they are wholly different from, and independent of, those employed in making any other; and the same is true of the materials, forces and motions employed in making each ovum.

In other words, each spermatozoön is composed of its own atoms, and these atoms are selected, assembled, combined and arranged by forces and motions, peculiar to itself, independently of and wholly different from, the forces and motions which build up every other. The same is true of each ovum, the necessary changes being made.

It is a well known fact that each human spermatozoön is so adapted to, and correlated with, each human ovum that these two cells will, under suitable conditions, fuse and produce a new human being. It is also true that no other substance, on the earth, will fuse with such an ovum with the same result. The same is true of each ovum vice versa. These facts prove that each spermatozoön, and each ovum, has a specific composition, and definite arrangement of its atoms; that each spermatozoön has the same composition, and, substantially the same form, size, and structure that every other has; and that each ovum has the same composition, form, size and structure that every other has.

We cannot doubt that each spermatozoön and each ovum is produced anew, separately and apart from, and independently of every other, the production of each having no relation to the production nor to the existence of any other.

Intellect, memory, will-power, force and motion are necessary to group two or more atoms into a prescribed chemical combination, or into a specified mechanical arrangement. So supernatural, psychic and creative force are necessary to endow the human spermatozoön and ovum, with the vital properties and potentialities which they are known to possess.

Thus it appears that each spermatozoön and each ovum has mysterious and wonderful properties peculiar to itself. We cannot believe that they are produced by accident, nor by chance; nor that the atoms, of which they are composed, assemble and group themselves, automatically, into the form of a spermatozoön or an ovum; nor that they are evolved by the factors of evolution. The man in whose genital organs the spermatozoön is formed, has no conscious part nor voluntary agency in its production; nor has he any control, nor any power over it. His sexual organs “grind it out” as a mill grinds out meal. Nor has the woman, in whose ovary the ovum is formed, any part nor agency in its production; nor any control nor any power over it. No man, however wise, scientific and great he may be, can make any combination of atoms with the properties and potentialities of the spermatozoön; nor with those of the ovum.

The atoms in each spermatozoön are unique and peculiar to it, they being similar to, but differing from, those composing any other spermatozoön; and the same is true of the atoms composing each ovum. So, each spermatozoön appears to be endowed with the power to produce a child with a form, features, characteristics and traits resembling those of its father. In like manner it appears that each ovum has the power to produce a child with a form, features, qualities and traits resembling those of its mother.

But the smallest ant is a giant, in comparison with the spermatozoön or the ovum. Neither of them has any brain, nor eyes, ears, nose, touch, nor taste—no brain nor sense-organs. It is impossible to believe that the spermatozoön knows the color of its father’s hair and eyes; his complexion; the length of his nose; the size and form of his head; his facial expression; his characteristics and traits. Nor can we even imagine that the ovum has any knowledge of its mother, nor of her anatomy, organs, form, features or characteristics.

But assuming for argument that the spermatozoön and ovum do know all these things, it would be absurd to suppose that they can, automatically, combine, arrange and differentiate their atoms, and the new daughter-cells, which are produced in the embryo body, in such manner and form as to reproduce the hair, eyes, complexion, form, features, characteristics and traits of the father and mother. The work, which the spermatozoön and ovum appear to do is, in fact, done by the Creator, Himself, He employing them as instruments with which to do the same.

In view of all the facts, we are compelled to infer that the Creator selects the atoms, which form the spermatozoön and the ovum and that he generates, guides and controls the forces, which assemble, group and arrange them into the form of a spermatozoön and ovum.

It follows that each human spermatozoön and ovum is a new, direct and special creation by Almighty God.

Sec. 16. Germ-Cell, Stem-Cell or Fertilized Ovum

The fertilized ovum is variously called, “germ-cell,” “stem-cell,” “first segmentation sphere,” “parent-cell,” “impregnated ovum,” “fertilized egg cell,” and other names of like import, all these phrases meaning the same thing.

Under the head, “Conception,” Haeckel says, among other things:

“The process of fertilization by sexual conception consists, therefore, essentially, in the coälescence and fusing together of two different cells. The lively spermatozoön travels toward the ovum by its serpentine movements and bores its way into the female cell. The nuclei of both sexual cells attracted by a certain affinity approach each other and melt into one.”—(Haeckel, Ev. Man, p. 53.)

How do they acquire this “affinity?” How do they know each other? Have they intellect, memory and will? Are they not driven toward each other by a supernatural, psychic force?

Continuing he says:

“The fertilized cell is quite another thing from the unfertilized cell. For if we must regard the spermia [spermatozoä] as real cells, no less than the ova, and the process of conception as the coälescence of the two we must consider the resultant cell as a quite new and independent organism. It bears in the cell and nuclear matter of the penetrating spermatozoön a part of the father’s body, and in the protoplasm of the ovum a part of the mother’s body. This is clear from the fact that the child inherits many features from both parents. It inherits from the father by means of the spermatozoön and from the mother by means of the ovum. The actual blending of the two cells produces a third cell, which is the germ of the child, or new organism conceived. One may also say of this sexual coälescence that the stem cell is a simple hermaphrodite, it unites both sexual substances in itself.” (Ev. Man, pp. 53-54.)

“The individual development,” he says, “in man and the other animals, commences with the formation of a simple ‘stem-cell,’ of this character, and this then passes by repeated segmentation (or cleavage) into a cluster of cells, known as ‘the segmentation sphere,’ or ‘segmentation cell.’” (Haeckel, Ev. Man, p. 54.)

On another page (56) he says:

“Hence the essential point in the process of sexual reproduction or impregnation is the formation of a new cell, the stem-cell, by the combination of two originally different cells, the female ovum and the male spermatozoön. The process is of the highest importance and merits our closest attention. All that happens in the later development of this first cell, and in the life of the organism that comes of it, is determined from the first by the chemical and morphological composition of the stem-cell, its nucleus and its body.” (Ev. Man, p. 56.)

“Hertwig,” he continues, “puts his theory of conception thus:

‘Conception consists in the copulation of two cell-nuclei, which comes from a male and a female cell.…’

“As the phenomenon of heredity is inseparably connected with the reproductive process we may further conclude that these two copulating nuclei convey the characteristics which are transmitted from parents to offspring.” (Ev. of Man, p. 56.)

“As, moreover, there is a complete coälescence (fusion) of the mutually attracted nuclear substances in conception, and the new nucleus formed (the stem nucleus) is the real starting point for the development of the fresh organism, the further conclusion may be drawn that the male nucleus conveys to the child the qualities of the father, and the female nucleus the features of the mother.

“We must not forget, however, that the protoplastic bodies of the copulating cells also fuse together in the act of impregnation; the cell-body of the invading spermatozoön (the trunk and tail of the ciliated cell) is dissolved in the yelk of the female ovum. This coälescence is not so important as that of the [two] nuclei, but it must not be overlooked; and though the process is not so well known to us, we see clearly at least the formation of the star-like figure, (the radial arrangement of the particles in the plasma) in it.” (Haeckel, Ev. Man, p. 56.)

In another place (p. 57) he says:

“It has been shown that the tiny sperm-cell (spermatozoön) is not subordinated to but co-ordinated with, the large ovum. The nuclei of the two cells, as the vehicle of the hereditary features of the parents, are of equal physiological importance. In some cases we have succeeded in proving that the mass of the active nuclear substance, which combines in the copulation of the two sexual nuclei is originally the same for both.

“These morphological facts are in perfect harmony with the familiar physiological truth that the child inherits from both parents; and that on the average they are equally distributed. I say ‘on the average’ because it is well known that a child may have a greater likeness to the father, or to the mother; that goes without saying, as far as the primary sexual characters (the sexual glands) are concerned. But it is also possible that the determination of the latter—the weighty determination whether the child is to be a boy or a girl—depends on a slight qualitative or quantitative difference in nuclein or the colored nuclear matter which comes from both parents in the act of conception.” (Ev. Man, p. 57.)

Haeckel continues, (p. 57):

“Quite in harmony with this new conception of the equivalence of the two gonads (ovum and spermatozoön) on the equal physiological importance of the male and female sex-cells and their equal share in the process of heredity, is the important fact established by Hertwig that in normal impregnation only one single spermatozoön copulates with one ovum; the membrane which is raised on the surface of the yelk immediately after one sperm-cell has penetrated, prevents any others from entering. All the rivals of the fortunate penetrator die without.” (Ev. Man, pp. 57-58.)

Sec. 17. Germ-Cell Does Not Contain Any Skeleton, Model nor Performed Outline of the Coming Embryo

At this point it should be noted that the stem-cell does not contain any skeleton, model nor other preformed outline of the coming embryo for the following reasons: (1) neither the ovum nor the spermatozoön contains any such skeleton, model nor outline; and if each of them contain such a thing, both would be destroyed when these primary cells fuse and merge into the germ-cell. (2) The germ-cell first divides into two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and sixty-four daughter-cells, and so on into the millions; and this segmentation of the stem-cell and daughter-cells would surely annihilate any skeleton, model or other outline that might exist in the germ-cell; (3) the germ-cell first divides into two daughter-cells and so on, to infinity, as already stated; and these daughter-cells form what are called “germ-layers” or sheets of cells from which the human body and all of its organs and parts are built up. (Haeckel, Ev. Man, pp. 14, 16, 59, 92; Encyc. Brit., (9th ed.) 3, p. 682; 8, pp. 165, 744; 24, p. 631; Cent. Dic. 3, p. 2500, “Germ-layer.”)

This mode of growth, by the segmentation of cells and formation of germ-layers, is called “epigenesis” which Huxley defines as “the successive differentiation of a relatively homogeneous rudiment, into the parts and structures, which characterize the adult.” (Encyc. Brit. 8, p. 744. Cent. Dic. 3, p. 1968, “Epigenesis.”)

According to the theory of epigenesis, which is now held by all the scientific world, the human body grows anew from the germ-cell, without any skeleton model or any other kind of preformation.

“Every living thing,” says Huxley, “is evolved from a particle of matter, in which no trace of the distinctive characters of the adult form of that living thing is discernible. This particle is termed a germ.” (Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 8, p. 746.)

He defines a germ as “matter potentially alive, and having, within itself, the tendency to assume a definite living form;” and says that this definition “appears to meet all the requirements of modern science.” (Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 8, p. 746.)

“In all cases,” he says, “the process of evolution [growth] consists in a succession of changes of the form, structure and functions of the germ [fertilized ovum], by which it passes, step by step, from an extreme simplicity, or relative homogeneity, of visible structure to a greater or less degree of complexity or heterogeneity; and the course of progressive differentiation is usually accompanied by growth, which is effected by intussusception.” (Encyc. Brit. 8, p. 746.)

Huxley is surely mistaken in saying that “the process of evolution [development and growth] consists in a succession of changes in the form, structure and functions of the germ,” for the germ (fertilized ovum) immediately divides into two daughter-cells, these into four, these into eight, sixteen and so on to infinity. Thus, it appears that germ (germ-cell) becomes “a drop in the sea,” its identity being wholly lost. Huxley states this fact, in substance, in the quotation below.

“The substance,” he says, “by the addition of which the germ is enlarged is in no case, simply absorbed ready-made form the not-living world, and packed between the elementary constituents of the germ.… The new material is, in a great measure, not only absorbed but assimilated, so that it become part and parcel of the molecular structure of the living body into which it enters. And so far from the fully developed organism’s being simply the germ plus the nutriment which it has absorbed, it is probable that the adult contains neither in form, nor in substance, more than an inappreciable fraction of the constituents of the germ; and that it is almost wholly made up of assimilated and metamorphosed nutriment. In the great majority of cases, at any rate, the full grown organism becomes what it is by the absorption of not-living matter, and its conversion into living matter of a specific type.” (Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 8, p. 746.)

The substance of these quotations is that the germ (fertilized ovum) has, within itself, a tendency to assume the form of a man or woman. But, as above remarked, this is not true. On the contrary the “germ” divides into two daughter-cells, and these continue to divide until millions of them are produced. These daughter-cells are so distributed, combined, differentiated, grouped and arranged as to produce the embryo body with all its organs and parts. According to Huxley and other materialists the “germ” and its daughter-cells do all this work spontaneously without the aid or guidance of any extraneous psychic or creative force. Is this possible?

Sec. 18. Germ-Cell Has No Inherent Power to Evolve, Spontaneously and Automatically, the Body and Organs of the Embryo

The germ-cell (fertilized ovum) has no brain, no eyes, ears, nose, touch, nor taste—no brain nor sense-organs—no organs whatever. It has no knowledge of chemical elements; nor of their affinities; nor of their combinations. It has no knowledge of mechanical arrangement; no knowledge of the human body nor of its organs and parts; nor of their chemical constituents; nor of their mechanical arrangement. It has no idea of time nor space; nor of the adaption of a means to an end; nor of a contrivance.

The germ-cell has no memory of any of these things, for it is impossible for any being to remember a thing that it never knew. This would be a contradiction of terms—an absurdity. I know that Haeckel and other writers speak of “unconscious memory,” “organic memory,” etc. But these are vagaries of the evolutionist and materialist, having no foundation in fact.

So far as our experience goes, there is no such thing as intellect nor memory without and apart from a living physical body. Before there can be intellect or memory, there must be such body to serve as its dwelling place. It is absurd to suppose that the spermatozoön, the ovum or the fertilized ovum has intellect or memory. But even if any of the three has either of these faculties, it would be preposterous to suppose that the spermatozoön, ovum or fertilized ovum, remembers anything that happened before the atoms, of which it is composed, were grouped together as such. In other words, we cannot even imagine that any living being remembers anything that happened before it came into existence as such being. It is too clear for argument that no parent ever transmits to his or her child the memory of any thing that he or she ever saw, heard, felt or knew. Every man knows that he has no memory of anything that happened to either of his parents. It follows that the memory of each animal is limited to the period of his own existence, as such; and that there is no such thing as “unconscious memory,” or “organic memory,” in the sense in which these terms are used by the evolutionist.

But “unconscious memory,” “organic memory,” etc., if there were any such thing, have no constructive force. I might have a vivid memory of every spring, wheel, and part of a watch and yet have no power to make one. So, an anatomist may know and remember every bone, muscle, artery, vein, nerve and part of the human body; but this knowledge and memory would not enable him to form the chemical combinations and make the mechanical arrangements necessary to construct the human body and impart life to it.

Nor has the germ-cell any will-power to begin and continue the work of building up the embryo body until it is completed. We cannot even imagine that the germ-cell has the semblance of a will in any sense of the term.

To construct the embryo body a sufficient number of atoms of the necessary chemical elements, such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., must be selected, assembled at the proper places and there combined, in certain proportions, to form the required chemical combinations; next these combinations must be grouped and mechanically arranged in such a manner as to form the embryo body, with all its organs and parts in their proper places.

Can the germ-cell, and the millions of daughter-cells arising from it, do this miraculous work, automatically, without the aid and guidance of the Creator?

Let us imagine that Edison or some other scientific man should build a tank large enough to hold a brick house with six rooms; that he put into the tank a “magic brick,” composed of silica, aluminum, iron, lime, magnesia, manganese, soda and potash combined in the proper proportions, (Encyc. Brit. 4, p. 280); that he turned a stream of water, charged with these elements, upon the brick; that it absorbed these substances from the water and assimilated them into its own body; that it afterward split into two “daughter-bricks,” these two into four, these into eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-eight, and so on to infinity; that these bricks, automatically, assumed such positions on top of each other as to build up the four walls of the house, without the aid of man or any other psychic force; that the bricks left spaces for doors, windows, etc.; that they also built up the chimneys, fire places, etc.; that some of the bricks, spontaneously, metamorphosed themselves into marble slabs for window-sills, door-sills, hearth-stones, etc.; that other bricks were converted into oaken mantels, with mirrors, etc.; that others were converted into slabs of slate and assumed the proper form, size and positions to form a slate roof!

If any such thing should ever happen it would be justly considered a great miracle.

But the development and growth of the embryo are far more mysterious and wonderful than the building of a house in this manner would be; for the embryo is a live miniature model of a man or woman—the work of a supernatural creative force—Almighty God.

Huxley says, in substance, that the germ-cell has “within itself the tendency to assume a definite living form.” He also says “that the great characteristic of the germ is, not so much what is, but what it may, under suitable conditions, become.”—(Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 8, p. 746.)

The common belief of mankind, in general, is that the germ-cell, spontaneously and automatically, develops and grows to be a man or woman, without the aid of any extraneous psychic or creative force.

But it is clear that the germ-cell divides into two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two and sixty-four daughter-cells; and so on to infinity. It follows that the germ-cell is annihilated within a few hours after it is formed; and that its identity, as the germ-cell is wholly lost in the myriads of daughter-cells which arise from it, and go to build up the embryo body; each daughter-cell containing, theoretically, a portion of the germ-cell.

It follows that the germ-cell has no tendency “within itself to assume a definite living form;” nor has it any power to become a living form, nor anything else.

Obviously, the microscopic germ-cell, when whole, would be powerless to develop and grow to be a man or woman; and for a much stronger reason the infinitesimal fragments of it would be powerless to do these things.

Apparently, the Creator uses the germ-cell to inaugurate the growth of daughter-cells in the embryo body, in the same manner that a grain of wheat is used to start the growth of a stalk of wheat.

Sec. 19. Reproduction, its Phenomena

All the phenomena of reproduction may be grouped under the following heads: (1) Production of the spermatozoön, (2) production of the ovum, (3) their fusion into the fertilized ovum, (4) production of daughter-cells, (5) distribution, mechanical arrangement and grouping of cells, (6) differentiation of cells into the different tissues, (7) waste of cells.

Sec. 20. Spermatozoön, its Production

The first step toward the reproduction of a man, woman, or any other mammal, (an individual of a species which suckles its young), is the formation of a spermatozoön in the genital organs of a male. See [index], infra, “Spermatozoön.”

Sec. 21. Ovum, its Production

The production of an ovum in the genital organs of a female is the second step. It is immaterial which of them is produced first. The essential point is that they shall meet and fuse into the fertilized ovum.

See [Sec. 14], supra; [Index], infra, “ovum.”

Sec. 22. Germ-Cell, its Production

The third step is the fusion of the spermatozoön and ovum into the germ-cell, stem-cell or fertilized ovum. See [index], infra, “germ-cell,” “stem-cell,” “fertilized ovum.”

Sec. 23. Daughter-Cells, Their Production

The fourth step is the production of daughter-cells. The germ-cell (fertilized ovum) is the primordial cell, from which every other cell in the human body is directly or indirectly, produced by fission or self-division. As already stated, the germ-cell divides into two daughter-cells, these into four, these into eight, sixteen, and so on to infinity. Every cell is composed of a vast number of atoms. A portion of these atoms is differentiated into “the inner nucleus (caryoplasm)” and “the body of the cell (cytoplasm).” (Haeckel, Ev. Man, p. 38.) Again he says: “In a mesh of the nuclear net-work … there is, as a rule, a dark, very opaque, solid body, called the nucleolus.” (Ev. Man, p. 38.) On another page, he says: “Some cells have a ‘nucleolinus’ in the center of the nucleolus.” (Ev. Man, p. 40, fig. 9.)

We cannot believe that any microscopic cell in the human body has intellect, memory, will-power nor creative force. For a stronger reason, we cannot imagine that any of the atoms of which any cell is composed, has these faculties. Nor can we conceive that a portion of these atoms, automatically, metamorphose themselves into a nucleolus, others into a nucleolinus, while the remainder continue to be a simple cell-body.

How do the cells know when the time has come to divide into two daughter-cells; where the dividing line should run in order to divide the cell-body, nucleus and nucleolus into two equal parts? For further discussion of cells see [Index], infra, “cell.”

Sec. 24. Animals, Their Sizes are Determined, How?

Why does the elephant grow larger than the mouse. Both are mammals and are built of cells. The mouse has identically the same organs and parts that the elephant has. The mode of reproducing each is the same as that of the other. The spermatozoön, ovum and germ-cell are common to both.

How does it happen that all normal adult individuals of each species of animal in a given region and of each sex, have substantially the same form and size, called: “the mode?”

The reader may reply that nature fixes the size and form of every individual of each species. The evolutionist will say that the law of heredity and environment determine the sizes and forms of animals and plants; that the mouse is small because his ancestors were small; that the elephant is large because his were large.

But these replies do not explain the phenomena. Each animal grows anew, for itself. His body is a new combination of the atoms and cells of which it is composed. The forces and motions employed in its construction are new and peculiar to it. When the cells in an embryo body begin to grow there is no apparent reason why they should not continue to grow and multiply, forever. Now, what psychic force or agency ascertains and determines when the work of building up the animal body has been completed? What force or agency equalizes the growth and waste of cells in a mature animal body and keeps it of the same form, size, and weight until the decay of old age comes on?

The size of every animal depends upon the size and number of cells in his body; and its form is determined by the manner in which these cells are grouped together. For example there are more cells in the nose (trunk) and teeth (tusks) of the elephant, in proportion to the size of his body, than there are in those of the mouse in proportion to his. It is clear that a mouse would grow to be as large as an elephant if the cells in his body continued to grow and multiply for a sufficient period of time. Why do the cells cease to multiply when the mouse has attained a certain size? Why do they stop work in the elephant’s body when he gets his normal growth? Do the cells in the mouse and those in the elephant know when their work is done? How do they know it?

The materialist denies the existence of a First Cause and maintains that every animal and plant is the result of “a natural continuous and necessary evolution.” (Haeckel, Evolution of Man, p. 26.) Huxley says, in effect, that “secondary causes” produce all the phenomena of the physical universe; and that man and the rest of the living world “are all co-ordinated terms in nature’s great progression.” (Man’s Place in Nature, pp. 150-151.)

But it appears that the materialist maintains that the law of heredity is fixed and unchangeable, at all events it is proof against secondary causes. For example, no sort of treatment, nor any kind nor quantity of food will make a mouse grow to the size of an elephant nor any larger than his ancestors were. Food and environment are “secondary causes;” but they have no power to change the form nor the size of the animal body.

Since all normal adult individuals of each species of animals, all over the earth, and in every age, have substantially the same form and size; and since each individual is built up, anew, of new cells (or atoms) by new forces and motions, we are compelled to assume that the same psychic force or agency determines the number of cells which shall go into each normal body, and the manner in which these cells shall be grouped together. In brief, the same supernatural psychic and creative force, always, determines the form and size of each animal, all over the earth.

Sec. 25. Distribution and Grouping of Cells in the Embryo Body

As already stated, every man and woman begins life as a germ-cell or fertilized ovum. This cell grows and divides into two daughter-cells; these into four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. At first these daughter-cells are so distributed and grouped as to form a solid ball called “the morula;” next they take the form of a hollow ball, called “the blastula” with a single layer or sheet of cells and a fluid in the center; next a group of cells with two layers, called “the gastrula;” then they are so distributed or grouped as to form two germ-layers or sheets of cells, then into three layers, then into four. At this point a portion of the cells is so grouped as to begin the formation of the spinal cord and brain; and in course of time, other cells are so distributed and grouped as to form the bones, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, kidneys, intestines, arms, hands, legs, feet and other organs and parts of the body.

The form of any animal body and each organ and part of such a body, depends upon the manner in which its cells are distributed and grouped. Thus, the form of the whale, elephant, giraffe, camel, lion, tiger, hippopotamus, alligator, python, horse, cow, eagle and humming-bird, is produced by the distribution of the cells or atoms in their bodies. If a man has a very large head, a long nose or big foot we are compelled to infer that these peculiarities are the result of depositing an unusual number of cells (“organic bricks”) in these parts of his body.

Sir Isaac Newton states his first law of motion in the words following:

“Everybody continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it is compelled, by force, to change that state.”—(Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 15, p. 676.)

For example, if one should lay a stone on the ground it would remain there forever, unless moved by some sort of force. It would be absurd to suppose that the stone could, automatically, move itself.

There is no such thing as making any thing out of nothing. Every thing is made of some other thing. The body of the horse is made of corn, hay and other vegetable and mineral substances. So the human body is made of bread, meat and other food-stuffs, eaten by the mother before birth and by the individual, himself, after birth. The germ-cell is deposited in the womb of its mother. It cannot develop nor grow, unless it receive nourishment from her body. She eats bread, meat and other things, these are converted into blood, and a portion of it is carried, by the force of her heart and arteries, to the germ-cell; it absorbs and assimilates a portion of the blood; produces cells; and these are so distributed and grouped as to form the embryo body with all its organs and parts.

It is obvious that the father has nothing to do with the circulation of the mother’s blood, which conveys nourishment to the embryo; it is equally clear that she has no conscious part in the circulation of her own blood, and that she has no power nor control over the development nor the growth of the embryo, except such as she may exert indirectly by the food which she eats.

The embryo begins life as a germ-cell. Atoms of building material must be conveyed, by the blood of the mother, to this cell, otherwise, it cannot develop nor grow. As new cells are produced, they are so distributed and grouped as to form the several organs and parts of the embryo body; or it may be said that new cells are produced and added to older cells, at such points as to build up the embryo organs and parts. For example, arm-buds and leg-buds appear on the surface of the trunk, as slight swellings or projections; new cells are added to these buds; they grow, in length, by the addition of cells at the distal (outer) ends, until they have attained the proper length, terminating in the fingers and toes. So the arms and legs grow to some extent in diameter by the addition of new cells; but the number of cells, which go to extend the length of the arms and legs, greatly exceeds the number which go to increase the diameter.