“We must not assume any original creation, nor repeated creations,” says Haeckel, “to explain this, but a natural, continuous and necessary evolution.” (Evolution of Man, p. 26.) He argues that there is no personal God.
Writing in the Encyclopedia Britannica (vol. 8, p. 746, 9 ed.) Professor Huxley says:
“No exception is, at this time, known to the general law, established upon an immense multitude of direct observations, that every living thing 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.…
“The definition of a germ as ‘matter potentially alive, and having, within itself, the tendency to assume a definite living form,’ appears to meet all the requirements of modern science … And the qualification of ‘potential’ has the advantage of reminding us that the great characteristic of the germ is not so much what it is, but what it may, under suitable conditions, become.…
“In all cases, the process of evolution consists in a succession of changes of the form, structure and functions of the germ 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 generally accompanied by growth, which is effected by intussusception,” [interstitial deposit.]
“… 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.”
This being true, it cannot be said that the germ (fertilized ovum) ever develops into a man or woman. On the contrary it is annihilated; and its identity is wholly lost among the daughter-cells which are made of the mother’s food.
Herbert Spencer invented what he calls “physiological units” or “constitutional units,” and “structural proclivity.” But neither he nor any other man ever saw one of these “units,” they being wholly imaginary. In his Principles of Biology (vol. 1, p. 368) under “Genesis, heredity and variation,” he says:
“So that though all parts are composed of physiological units of the same nature, yet everywhere, in virtue of local conditions and the influence of its neighbors, each unit joins in forming a particular structure appropriate to its place.”
Could anything be more absurd?