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"If the eggs of a mammal now differ very essentially from those of a reptile and of an amphibian because in their organization they represent the beginnings only of mammals, even as these represent only the beginnings of reptiles and amphibians, by how much more must they differ from those hypothetical single-celled amoebas which could as yet show no other characteristics than to reproduce amoebas of their own kind."
"Mamma dear, will you please tell us the story of 'The Three Bears'?" "No, my love, not to-day, I have told it you very often lately and I am busy." "Very well, Mamma dear, then we will tell you the story of 'The Three Bears." The Iliad and the Odyssey are only "The Three Bears" upon a larger scale. Just as the life of a man is only the fission of two amoebas on a larger scale.
And what the amoeba is man is also; man is only a great many amoebas, most of them dreadfully narrow-minded, going up and down the country with their goods and chattels like gipsies in a caravan; he is only a great many amoebas that have had much time and money spent on their education, and received large bequests of organised intelligence from those that have gone before them.
In the eighteenth century naturalists were very keen on the Infusorian Amoebas, and were much struck by the way in which the members of this old family behaved and developed.
Since the development of every organism begins with it, the primitive condition is in no way recapitulated from the time when perhaps only single-celled amoebas existed on our planet.
Thus did the neck of the giraffe reach out across the whole heavens and make men believe that what they saw there was a gloaming of the gods. For if this sort of selection could turn an antelope into a giraffe, it could conceivably turn a pond full of amoebas into the French Academy.
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