9    The late Louis Agassiz, by his microscopic examination of a vulture’s ovum, strengthens the thinker’s conclusions Embryonic evolutionas to the scientific theory of creation. Agassiz 12was able to see in the egg the earth’s atmos-phere, the gathering clouds, the moon and stars, while the germinating speck of so-called embryonic life seemed a 15small sun. In its history of mortality, Darwin’s theory of evolution from a material basis is more consistent than most theories. Briefly, this is Darwin’s theory, — that 18Mind produces its opposite, matter, and endues matter with power to recreate the universe, including man. Ma-terial evolution implies that the great First Cause must 21become material, and afterwards must either return to Mind or go down into dust and nothingness.

9    How little light or heat reach our earth when clouds cover the sun’s face! So Christian Science can be seen The clouds dissolvingonly as the clouds of corporeal sense roll away. 12Earth has little light or joy for mortals before Life is spiritually learned. Every agony of mortal error helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension 15of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being.

18    Speaking of the origin of mortals, a famous naturalist says: “It is very possible that many general statements Prediction of a naturalistnow current, about birth and generation, will 21be changed with the progress of information.” Had the naturalist, through his tireless researches, gained the diviner side in Christian Science, — so far apart from 24his material sense of animal growth and organization, — he would have blessed the human race more abundantly.

    Natural history is richly endowed by the labors and 27genius of great men. Modern discoveries have brought Methods of reproductionto light important facts in regard to so-called embryonic life. Agassiz declares (“Methods 30of Study in Natural History,” page 275): “Certain ani-mals, besides the ordinary process of generation, also increase their numbers naturally and constantly by self-549549:1division.” This discovery is corroborative of the Science of Mind, for this discovery shows that the multiplication 3of certain animals takes place apart from sexual condi-tions. The supposition that life germinates in eggs and must decay after it has grown to maturity, if not before, 6is shown by divine metaphysics to be a mistake, — a blunder which will finally give place to higher theories and demonstrations.

9    Creatures of lower forms of organism are supposed to have, as classes, three different methods of reproduc-The three processestion and to multiply their species sometimes 12through eggs, sometimes through buds, and sometimes through self-division. According to recent lore, successive generations do not begin with the birth of 15new individuals, or personalities, but with the formation of the nucleus, or egg, from which one or more individu-alities subsequently emerge; and we must therefore look 18upon the simple ovum as the germ, the starting-point, of the most complicated corporeal structures, including those which we call human. Here these material researches 21culminate in such vague hypotheses as must necessarily attend false systems, which rely upon physics and are de-void of metaphysics.

3God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms 6and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men. 9 ... Of what avail is it to investigate what is miscalled material life, which ends, even as it be-12gins, in nameless nothingness? The true sense of being and its eternal perfection should appear now, even as it will hereafter.

15    Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The continual contemplation of existence as material and cor-Stages of existenceporeal — as beginning and ending, and with 18birth, decay, and dissolution as its component stages — hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting-21point whatsoever, then the great I am is a myth. If Life is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embry-onic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for 24Deity.

    Embryology supplies no instance of one species pro-ducing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor 27does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed monstrous and is seldom fruitful, but it is not so hideous and absurd as the supposition that Spirit — the pure and 30holy, the immutable and immortal — can originate the impure and mortal and dwell in it. As Christian Science repudiates self-evident impossibilities, the material senses 551 551:1must father these absurdities, for both the material senses and their reports are unnatural, impossible, and unreal.

3    Either Mind produces, or it is produced. If Mind is first, it cannot produce its opposite in quality and quantity, The real producercalled matter. If matter is first, it cannot pro-6duce Mind. Like produces like. In natural history, the bird is not the product of a beast. In spiritual history, matter is not the progenitor of Mind.

9    One distinguished naturalist argues that mortals spring from eggs and in races. Mr. Darwin admits this, but he The ascent of speciesadds that mankind has ascended through all 12the lower grades of existence. Evolution de-scribes the gradations of human belief, but it does not acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that ma-15terial methods are impossible in divine Science and that all Science is of God, not of man.

    Naturalists ask: “What can there be, of a material 18nature, transmitted through these bodies called eggs, — Transmitted peculiaritiesthemselves composed of the simplest material elements, — by which all peculiarities of an-21cestry, belonging to either sex, are brought down from generation to generation?” The question of the natu-ralist amounts to this: How can matter originate or trans-24mit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality. From a material standpoint, “Canst thou 27by searching find out God?” All must be Mind, or else all must be matter. Neither can produce the other. Mind is immortal; but error declares that the material 30seed must decay in order to propagate its species, and the resulting germ is doomed to the same routine.

    The ancient and hypothetical question, Which is first, 552 552:1the egg or the bird? is answered, if the egg produces the parent. But we cannot stop here. Another question 3Causation not in matterfollows: Who or what produces the parent of the egg? That the earth was hatched from the “egg of night” was once an accepted theory. Heathen 6philosophy, modern geology, and all other material hy-potheses deal with causation as contingent on matter and as necessarily apparent to the corporeal senses, even 9where the proof requisite to sustain this assumption is un-discovered. Mortal theories make friends of sin, sickness, and death; whereas the spiritual scientific facts of exist-12ence include no member of this dolorous and fatal triad.

    Human experience in mortal life, which starts from an egg, corresponds with that of Job, when he says, “Man 15Emergence of mortalsthat is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Mortals must emerge from this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck 18open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward and upward.