ween the embryonic development of the
individual animal and the succession of animals in geological time
placed on a level with that reasoning from analogy by which geologists
apply modern causes to explain geological formations. No claim could
be more unfounded. When the geologist studies ancient limestones built
up of the remains of corals, and then applies the phenomena of modern
coral reefs to explain their origin, he brings the latter to bear on
the former by an analogy which includes not merely the apparent
results, but the causes at work, and the conditions of their action,
and it is on this that the validity of his comparison depends, in so
far as it relates to similarity of mode of formation. But when we
compare the development of an animal from an embryo cell with the
progress of animals in time, though we have a curious analogy as to
the steps of the process, the conditions and causes at work are known
to be altogether dissimilar, and therefore we have no evidence
whatever as to identity of cause, and our reasoning becomes at once
the most transparent of fallacies. Farther, we have no right here to
overlook the fact that the conditions of the embryo are determined by
those of a previous adult, and that no sooner does this hereditary
potentiality produce a new adult animal than the terrible external
agencies of the physical world, in presence of which all life exists,
begin to tell on the organism, and after a struggle of longer or
shorter duration it succumbs to death, and its substance returns into
inorganic nature--a law from which even the longer life of the species
does not seem to exempt it. All this is so plain and manifest that it
is extraordinary that evolutionists will continue to use such partial
and imperfect arguments. Another example may be taken from that
application of the doctrine of natural selection to explain the
introduction of species in geological time, which is so elaborately
discussed by Sir C. Lyell in the last edition of his 'Principles of
Geology.' The great geologist evidently leans strongly to the theory,
and claims for it the 'highest degree of probability;' yet he
perceives that there is a serious gap in it, since no modern fact has
ever proved the origin of a new species by modification. Such a gap,
if it existed in those grand analogies by which we explain geological
formations through modern causes, would be admitted to be fatal.

"A third illustration of the partial characte