Virchow’s assistant, the secretary of the German Anthropological Society, Professor Johannes Ranke of Munich, has also indefatigably opposed transformism: he has succeeded in writing a work in two volumes (_Der Mensch_), in which all the facts relating to his organisation are explained in a sense hostile to evolution. This work has had a wide circulation, owing to its admirable illustrations and its able treatment of the most interesting facts of anatomy and physiology—exclusive of the sexual organs! But, as it has done a great deal to spread erroneous views among the general public, I have included a criticism of it in my _History of Creation,_ as well as met Virchow’s attacks on anthropogeny. Neither Virchow, nor Ranke, nor any other “exact” anthropologist, has attempted to give any other natural explanation of the origin of man. They have either set completely aside this “question of questions” as a transcendental problem, or they have appealed to religion for its solution. We have to show that this rejection of the rational explanation is totally without justification. The fund of knowledge which has accumulated in the progress of biology in the nineteenth century is quite adequate to furnish a rational explanation, and to establish the theory of the evolution of man on the solid facts of his embryology. Chapter VI. THE OVUM AND THE AMŒBA In order to understand clearly the course of human embryology, we must select the more important of its wonderful and manifold processes for fuller explanation, and then proceed from these to the innumerable features of less importance. The most important feature in this sense, and the best starting-point for ontogenetic study, is the fact that man is developed from an ovum, and that this ovum is a simple cell. The human ovum does not materially differ in form and composition from that of the other mammals, whereas there is a distinct difference between the fertilised ovum of the mammal and that of any other animal. Fig.1 The human ovum Fig. 1—The human ovum. The globular mass of yelk (_b_) is enclosed by a transparent membrane (the ovolemma or zona pellucida [_a_]), and contains a noncentral nucleus (the germinal vesicle, _c_). Cf. Fig. 14.