The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872 / A Monthly Magazine

ests. That foundation is no other than a kind of likeness which appears at first sight between the rudimental forms w

, is {73} subjected to continual metamorphoses, that is, to successive transformations, which give it different aspects, from that of a little disc to the perfect human figure. Now, it is clear that, in this gradual transition fr

ing an analogy with some of those forms, gives us no right to infer that there is one with all. Hence

w, the doctrine of epigenesis raised against itself the most simple and scientific common sense, as being manifestly erroneous. Numerous works on the development of the germ have demonstrated that appearances were taken for realities, and that imagination had created a real romance. It has been proved that if, at certain epochs of its development, the human

om the end. Both belong to the same order-one implies movement, the other rest. Their difference lies only in this: that what in the term is unfolded and complete, in its progress toward the term is found to be only sketched out, and having a tendency to formation. Hence it follows that, whatever the point of view from which we consider the embryo of each animal, it is nothing else but the total organism of the same in the course of formation; and, therefore, it differs as substant

pecies from another. The difference, then, between the former and the latter is interior and substantial, and cannot be changed into exterior and accidental, as it would be if it consisted in {74} stopping or in travelling further on. The movement or tendency which takes place in the germ to become another thing until the said germ assumes a perfect organization relative to the being it must produce, is not a quality which can be discarded, since it is intimately

uired by its independent existence it needs development, every step in that journey is an inchoation of the next, and cannot e

they are nothing else but deviations, for want of ulterior development, from what nature really intends to do as a t

of perfection. For what other reason could be alleged for nature's stopping at a bird when it intends to make a man, but that the causes are not properly disposed, or that circumstances are not quite favorable to the production of that perfect animal? Then when the causes are ready, and the circumstances propitio

gdom and of stages of development falls to the ground, i