94 THE GERMAN TRANSCENDENTALISTS 



abnormalities which are found to be normal in other (lower) 

 forms (p. 556). 1 



We may refer to one other statement of the law of 

 parallelism by K. G. Carus in his Lclirbnch dcrverglcicliaidcn 

 Anatomic (Leipzig, 1834). The standpoint is again that 

 of NaturpJiilosopJiic. It is a general law of Nature, Carus 

 thinks, that the higher formations include the lower; thus 

 the animal includes the vegetable, for it possesses the 

 " vegetative " as well as the " animal " organs. So it is, too, 

 by a rational necessity that the development of a perfect 

 animal repeats the series of antecedent formations. 



As we have said, the main credit for the enunciation of 

 the law of parallelism belongs to the German transcendental 

 school ; but the law owes much also to Serres, who, with 

 Meckel, worked out its implications. It might for convenience, 

 and in order to distinguish it from the laws later enunciated 

 by von Baer and Haeckel, be called the law of Meckel-Serres. 



Under the " theory of the repetition or multiplication of 

 parts within the organism" may be included, first, generalisa- 

 tions on the serial homology of parts, and second, more or 

 less confused attempts to demonstrate that the whole 

 organisation is repeated in certain of the parts. The 

 recognition of serial homologies constituted a real advance 

 in morphology; the "philosophical" idea of the repetition 

 of the whole in the parts led to many absurdities. It led 

 Oken to assert that in the head the whole trunk is repeated, 

 that the upper jaw corresponds to the arms, the lower to the 

 legs, that in each jaw the same bony divisions exist as in the 

 limbs, the teeth, for instance, corresponding to the claws (Joe. 

 ci/., p. 408). It led him to distinguish "two animals" in 

 every body the cephalic and the sexual animal. Each of 

 these has its own organs; thus " in the perfect animal there 

 are two intestinal systems thoroughly distinct from each 

 other, two intestines which belong to two different animals, 

 the sexual and cephalic animal, or the plant and the animal " 

 (p. 382). The intestine of the sexual animal is the large 

 intestine; the lungs of the sexual animal are the kidneys, its 

 glottis is the urethra, its mouth the anus. So, too, the mouth 

 is the stomach of the head. On another line of thought the 



1 Cf. Geoffrey (sit/>r<i, p. 70). 



