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.