So that each ovum when impregnate should be considered not as descended
from its ancestors, but as being a continuation of the personality of
every ovum in the chain of its ancestry, every which ovum _it actually
is_ as truly as the octogenarian _is_ the same identity with the ovum
from which he has been developed. The two cases stand or fall together.
This process cannot stop short of the primordial cell, which again will
probably turn out to be but a brief resting-place. We therefore prove
each one of us to _be actually_ the primordial cell which never died nor
dies, but has differentiated itself into the life of the world, all
living beings whatever, being one with it, and members one of another.
To look at the matter for a moment in another light, it will be admitted
that if the primordial cell had been killed before leaving issue, all its
possible descendants would have been killed at one and the same time. It
is hard to see how this single fact does not establish at the point, as
it were, of a logical bayonet, an identity between any creature and all
others that are descended from it.
* * * * *
The fencing (for it does not deserve the name of serious disputation)
with which Bishop Butler meets his opponents is rendered possible by the
laxness with which the words "identical" and "identity" are ordinarily
used.
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