in the lower animals, into which man became degenerated, as it is to suppose that these parts existed in full development, activity, and practical use in the lower animals, out of whom man was generated, and that in man they lost their utility and became relatively mere rudiments? To my mind, neither theory has the requisite amount of probability in its favor compared with the probability of special creations; but I can see as much probability in the Platonic as in the Darwinian explanation, and a strong parallelism between them. I will pursue this parallel somewhat further by again adverting to Plato's idea of the origin of the human soul. He supposes it to have been an immortal being, formed out of the eternal essence of Ideas by the Demiurgus. He manifestly makes it an existence distinct from matter, because he places its first abode in a heavenly mansion, where it is in unison with the celestial harmonies and perfections of the outer circle. This heavenly sphere is again to be its abode, after it shall have been released from its temporary abode on earth, which has been appointed to it for purposes of discipline and trial. At a fixed time of birth it is brought down from its celestial abode and united with a mortal body, that it may assert and prove its power to preside over and govern that body according to the eternal laws of reason and rectitude. If it fulfills this high duty, when the fastenings, which have bound it to the mortal frame, are dissolved with the dissolution of those which hold together the material structure, the soul flies away with delight to its own peculiar star. If it fails in this high duty, it is on the death of the first body transferred by a second birth into a more degraded body, resembling that to which it has allowed the first one to be debased. At length, somewhere in the series of transmigrations, the lower and bestial tendencies cease to have power over the immortal soul; the animal with which it was last united remains an animal bereft of reason, and the soul, released from further captivity, escapes to its original abode in the heavens, more or less contaminated by what it has undergone, but still immortal, indestructible, spiritual, and capable of purification.