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.