Memoriam._

"Until Christ be formed in you."--_Paul._

"The one end to which, in all living beings, the formative impulse
is tending--the one scheme which the Archaeus of the old speculators
strives to carry out, seems to be to mould the offspring into the
likeness of the parent. It is the first great law of reproduction,
that the offspring tends to resemble its parent or parents more
closely than anything else."--_Huxley._

If a botanist be asked the difference between an oak, a palm-tree and a
lichen, he will declare that they are separated from one another by the
broadest line known to classification. Without taking into account the
outward differences of size and form, the variety of flower and fruit,
the peculiarities of leaf and branch, he sees even in their general
architecture types of structure as distinct as Norman, Gothic and
Egyptian. But if the first young germs of these three plants are placed
before him and he is called upon to define the difference, he finds it
impossible. He cannot even say which is which. Examined under the
highest powers of the microscope they yield no clue. Analyzed by the
chemist with all the appliances of his laboratory they keep their
secret.

The same experiment can be tried with the embryos of animals. Take the
ovule of the worm, the eagle, the elephant, and of man himself. Let the
most skilled observer apply the most searching tests to distinguish one
from the other and he will fail. But there is something more surprising
still. Compare next the two sets of germs, the vegetable and the animal.
And there is still no shade of difference. Oak and palm, worm and man
all start in life together. No matter into what strangely different
forms they may afterward develop, no matter whether they are to live on
sea or land, creep or fly, swim or walk, think or vegetate, in the
embryo as it first meets the eye of Science they are indistinguishable.
The apple which fell in Newton's garden, Newton's dog Diamond, and
Newton himself, began life at the same point.[85]

If we analyze this material point at which all life starts, we shall
find it to consist of a clear structureless jelly-like substance
resembling albumen or white of egg. It is made of Carbon, Hydrogen,
Oxygen and Nitrogen. Its name is protoplasm. And it is not only the
structural unit with which all living bodies start in life, but with
which they are subsequently built up. "Protoplasm," says Hu