“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.