"But if the first young
germs of these three plants are placed before him," says Drummond, and
the botanist 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 the
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 no shade of
difference. Oak and palm, worm and man, all start in life together. No
matter into what strangely different forms they may afterwards 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."[10]
In these remarks, of course, Drummond is dealing with the unicellular
primal form, "as it first meets the eye of science"; and while certain
slight peculiarities (such as the constant number of chromosomes) have
been detected as characteristic of the cells of certain forms, yet for
all practical purposes these words of Drummond are just as true to-day
as when first written.
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