demonstrated fact against which the materialistic waves of evolution will beat in vain! The great mind of Darwin, when contemplating the astonishing fact that an instinct, and even a cultivated habit, in a dog or horse, though not natural to the species, is inherited by its offspring, which will repeat the habit without being taught, becomes almost paralyzed with bewilderment, and he exclaims-"Even an imperfect answer to this question would be satisfactory." But I will quote him in full, and then give him a perfect answer: "How, again, can we explain to ourselves the inherited effects of the use or disuse of particular organs? The domesticated duck flies less and walks more than the wild duck, and its limb-bones have become in a corresponding manner diminished and increased in comparison with those of the wild duck. A horse is trained to certain paces, and the colt inherits similar consensual movements. The domesticated rabbit becomes tame from close confinement; the dog intelligent from associating with man; the retriever is taught to fetch and carry; and these mental endowments and bodily powers are all inherited. Nothing in the whole circuit of physiology is more wonderful. How can the use or disuse of a particular limb or of the brain affect a small aggregate of reproductive cells, seated in a distant part of the body, in such a manner that the being developed from these cells inherits the characters of either one or both parents? Even an imperfect answer to this question would be satisfactory."—DarWIN, Animals and Plants, vol. ii., p. 445. Had Darwin's mind ever been so fortunate as to delve down into the great central truth I have just been elaborating, that the life and mental powers of every living creature constitute a perfect incorporeal yet substantial organism, as real as the one composed of blood, bone, and muscle, and that inheritance from the parents by the offspring comes solely through such intangible entity, he never would have so puzzled his brain over this problem of the transmission of an instinct or an acquired habit, and would never have | begged for even an "imperfect answer to this question." He here has a perfect an swer. I wonder if he will have the candot and magnanimity to acknowledge it! If he has no difficulty in understanding how two fine-wool merinos, male and female, should transmit their peculiar physical characteristics to the lamb, but accepts it as a simple and natural fact, then, whenever he grasps the true and broad idea that these merino parents transmitted this characteristic of fine wool to their offspring exclusively through their mental and vital structures, and that their merely corporeal organisms had nothing whatever to do with the transmission except as being the physical media through which the peculiarity was conveyed, he will then have not the slightest difficulty in understanding and accepting the equally simple and beautiful fact that the retriever after being taught to fetch and carry, transmits this mental habit to the pup through his own mental and vital organism so effectually that the offspring will practise the same thing without being taught. Without the presence of this substantial mental and vital organism all such facts are wholly and abso lutely inexplicable.. Right here, then, at the very threshold of my arguments by which I have proposed to overthrow evolution, and while thus establishing the immovable foundation of my future exposition of the theory, I have incidentally furnished a simple and beautiful solution of one of the most profound problems which Mr. Darwin finds mixed up with the complex subject of inheritance, and one so bewildering that he prays for some solution, he cares not how "imperfect," agreeing in advance to be satisfied with it rather than to depend on the wretched consolation which his own corporeal theory of inherited transmissions affords. No wonder he implores assist ance, since no physical theory of inherit- | under microscopic power, since but a thou ance can aid him. I have here given it to him without money and without price. Will he accept it? We shall see. Let the reader not forget, then, what has been accomplished in the arguments just preceding. It has been shown that while all organic beings are changed in all their parts, and their physical atoms substituted frequently by others during life, thus preventing all corporeal transmission whatever, yet inheritance does take place, absolutely proving the presence in each being of an incorporeal self, or substantial organism. It has further been proved that while the father equally transmits his likeness and character to his child the mother furnishes nearly all of its physical organism, showing beyond the power of contradiction that no inheritance comes through corporeal structure, and at the same time demonstrating that each being possesses a substantial organism within the physical, which is incorporeal and intangible. So long as these two annihilating propositions remain unrefuted, just so long will evolution remain with its entire foundation of physical inheritance demolished. If the physical or corporeal organism is all there is about a living creature concerned in the phenomena of inheritance and the transmission of characters, as held by all evolutionists, then surely it must be clear to the reader, if there is no continuity of corporeal structure from one generation to another, that physical transmissions are impossible in the very nature of things; and hence the whole fabric of inheritance and descent is annihilated. If nothing but corporeal structure constitutes the medium for inherited transmissions, then it must follow, if a lamb has a fine-wool father and a coarse-wool mother, not a thread of its wool would be sufficiently changed from the coarse fiber of its mother to be detected sandth part, approximately, of its organic nature could have come from the father. Here, then, by evolutionists basing their theory of descent on transmissions through physical organism alone, thus ignoring entirely any other substantial structure as part of a living creature, the foundation of the hypothesis of natural selection is swept away. Hence, if I were disposed to stop right here and not write another paragraph against evolution, the theory of descent as based on transmission alone through corporeal structure could never recover from the force of this single blow; for what is evolution without inherited transmissions? and how is inheritance possible when the very channel through which it passes is displaced in all its parts and substituted by new ingredients several times during each life? Modern evolution knows no medium through which characters can be transmitted save the physical structure, which I have shown by the best authority has no continuity from one generation to another. Therefore, as inheritance is taken away from the theory, the entire superstructure of evolution falls hopelessly to the ground. No escape is possible except by adopting my view, that within each physical structure there exists also a substantial vital and mental organism. But is there a rational or supposable hypothesis by which to account for so-called reversions in man to the organs or characters of lower animals, as described by Mr. Darwin? Is there any supposable theory for explaining the gills of fish and the presence of a caudal appendage in the human embryo as well as in those of all vertebrate animals? Is it possible to account for the occurrence of a monstrosity in one species resembling some other specific form, or to explain satisfactorily deformities in children resulting from the mental impressions of the mother? That such phenomena do | evidence. If the gills of fishes or the tails not result from physical or corporeal causes, of tortoises really do show themselves in such as inherited transmissions linking the embryos of all mammals, from the mouse species together, I shall regard as already up to man, through the law of physical inclearly demonstrated so far as "reversions" heritance from those ancient progenitors, are concerned. That there is a vital and as Darwin and all evolution writers mainmental organism within and inclosed by tain, then it would undeniably follow that the physical structure of every organic be- a small remnant of this ancestral blood and ing I shall also consider as equally demon- corporeal nature from the fish and tortoise .strated, and beyond the possibility of doubt must still remain in the human mother in by an unbiassed mind. And, finally, I shall order to be thus transmitted by her organmaintain that to this intangible and incor- ism to the embryonic structure of the inporeal vital and mental organism we are fant. For an evolutionist to even attempt to look for all the phenomena of inherit- an evasion of this fundamental principle ance, growth, variation, embryology, &c. of his theory would be to abandon evolu tion and the idea of physical descent altogether. Yet, properly, before presenting the hypothesis which I have invented for the solution of the problem of reversionary action, I ought to examine also the surprising facts of embryology, and show, as I have already intimated, that so far from aiding evolution they are absolutely against the theory, even should I be unable to explain their true cause. These remarkable appearances in the embryos of all vertebrate animals so confidently relied on by Mr. Darwin and all his followers as direct proof of evolution, really, in one sense, are as much reversions, so called, as are the recurrence of supernumerary mammæ, and must therefore come under the same general objections, and be ultimately explained by the same hypothesis. I shall therefore come directly to the discussion of EMBRYOLOGY. That the presence of branchiæ and a caudal organ in the human embryo at an early stage of progress can not be caused by human descent and corporeal inheritance from fishes and tortoises has been already scientifically demonstrated, since, as just remarked, these embryonic appearances belong in the same class of phenomena as so-called reversions, and must stand or fall by the same philosophical Hence, this entire embryologic argument, of which evolutionists so persistently and triumphantly remind their opponents, falls hopelessly to the ground by the very facts and considerations just brought to bear on the subject of reversions. I need only refer the reader back to that terrible and fatal line of figures showing the almost infinite dilution of ancestral blood after only one hundred generations have passed; that is, supposing the blood or physical nature of an ancestor to descend at all from one generation to another, which was clearly demonstrated could not be the case. If that line of figures should be continuously multiplied till it would represent the number of generations back to the Devonian fish, as estimated by moderate evolutionists, there would be an unbroken string of numerals, as closely printed as in the table, over one hundred miles long; and this would represent the dilution of fish-blood in the veins of a mother which impresses the form of branchia on the embryonic infant! I assert, without intending to impugn any man's honesty, that no sensible evolutionist does or can believe it. But aside from the impossibility of this inconceivably diluted atom of ancestral | from generation to generation. Not one blood affecting such a result in opposition to the mother's organism and in defiance of the blood of all her human ancestors, it remains an incontrovertible fact, as proved, that there is no such a thing as the transmission of physical blood or structure of any kind, even for a single generation, since all the corporeal atoms of every nature composing a child's body are displaced and substituted by new ingredients several times before that child reaches maturity. Hence, as so unanswerably shown, not an atom of ancestral blood or physical structure can reach even as far as to the first grandchild. How, then, in the name of science and common sense, can the prints of gills and tails be conveyed to embryonic infants through the unbroken transmission of blood from the tortoise and fish? To suppose that the reader does not see and appreciate the force of this crushing argument would be to cast a slur upon his intelligence. It therefore matters nothing, as remarked about reversions, whether I am able or not to offer a plausible explanation of these embryonic problems, or, in fact, any explanation at all, they clearly have nothing to do with evolution. Even if I should now admit them among the unsolvable mysteries of which every page of Nature is so prolific, it would nevertheless remain an established fact that Darwin's theory fails utterly to account for them. If they If they are never to be explained, still this fact is clearly demonstrated, that they do not and can not come by descent from the tortoise and fish. It must be remembered as an undisputed fact that inheritance, with Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, and all evolutionists, signifies only the transmission of characters or peculiarities, through the physical blood and structure of organic beings, handed down of these writers has ever had the first glimmer, as their works indicate, of this beautiful and grand idea of an incorporeal yet substantial vital and mental organism. existing within and represented by the physical structure. Hence, whatever use such a sublime view of organic life might be to them to help out their broken-down theory of physical inheritance, they have forever estopped themselves from employing it by their utter repudiation of life and mind as anything except the mere motions of commingling organic molecules. I may also be permitted to add, as cautiously as may be, that the true reason why these great problems raised by Darwin, such as reversions, embryonic resemblance, rudimentary organs, &c., have never before been wrenched from the grasp of evolution and hurled with fatal effect against the theory, is because no reviewer of the theory of descent has seemed to catch this fundamental principle of being, that each living creature has a dual organism or two distinct structures interblended-one corporeal and subject to constant mutation, while the other is incorporeal, not liable to mutation, and hence the only part about every living creature constituting the essential identity of its being. I here assert confidently that no man can answer these fundamental arguments of evolution or solve the otherwise inexplicable mysteries involved in inherited transmissions, if this broad principle of a substantial vital and mental organism be ignored. Hence, Darwin's principal scientific facts have never been met. Although the arguments just advanced completely take embryology outside the pale of evolution, I do not propose to stop here with these facts, which Mr. Darwin says were among the main reasons which "convinced" him of the truth of evolution, and which Professor Haeckel, his great German apostle and coadjutor, flings boastfully at all opponents of the theory of descent as beyond their power to jostle, and in which he declares, “I see one of the most important and irrefutable proofs of the theory of descent. No one can explain these phenomena unless he has recourse to the laws of inheritance and adaptation; by these alone are they explicable." (See page 402.) Then, to show how conclusive is this similar appearance of the human and lower forms in their early embryonic condition, as a proof of evolution by transmutation, Professor Haeckel goes to the expense of producing two elaborate plates representing the embryos of the man, dog, chicken, and tortoise, at a correspondingly early and then also at a more advanced stage of growth, in which the tail of the tortoise and so-called gill-arches of the fish are conspicuously displayed in the human embryo and also in that of the three lower animals, as a proof that man descended from the tortoise and the fish. But in these plates (as those having a copy of Professor Haeckel's History of Creation will see), this learned naturalist overshoots his mark, so to speak, and gives us a complete illustration of that "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself." It is really an unfortunate coincidence, that, while the younger series of embryonic pictures makes the "little human tail" and the fish-gills everything the most ardent evolutionist could desire, the embryonic heads of the four different orders are not only a total failure but a fatal blunder, showing such a want of foresight as to utterly overthrow the argument; for while the head of the human embryo is the proper size and exactly in proportion to the size of its body, thus consistently representing the human cranial type from the commencement of life, the head of the tortoise and that of the chicken are enormously out of proportion to the sizes of their bodies, and ridiculously as large as that of the human embryo, if not a trifle larger! Yet every one,however little versed in natural history, knows that the head of a tortoise in proportion to the size of its body is not one quarter as large as that of man. Thus it follows, since the head is of infinitely more importance as a guide to generic classification than the tail, that Professor Haeckel has unwittingly placed his hereditary cart squarely before his embryologic horse, and, by giving the tortoise a human head, has actually reversed evolution,and proved that the reptile descended from man! If these sagacious plates of Haeckel are correct,→ which, of course, must be admitted, then the whole embryologic argument falls to pieces, since the most casual observer must see, who examines these pictures, that while the human form retains its own head in due proportion from the start, the tortoise drops its normal head and adopts that of man! It follows, then, unanswerably, that this "little human tail" which Professor Haeckel keeps so menacingly before his opponents, as he refers to his annihilating plates, never came by descent from the tortoise at all, since the human head which fits so coolly on this embryonic reptile could not have descended from man, if there is any truth in "survival of the fittest." But I refer the reader back to the preceding chapter for an elaborate discussion of the whole which the very facts of the "gill-arches" question of embryonic development, in and the "little tail of man" are denied, and reasons given for the denial, though I have here admitted them as claimed by these scientists, and have endeavored to show, even after such concession, that they do not favor evolution. Having thus succeeded in depriving evolution of the least claim to or interest in the phenomena of embryology and re |