THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY 275 



had its own line of descent, different from that of others.' . . . 

 Kohlbrugge now introduces Haacke, who denies any relation- 

 ship between man and apes, the latter being instances of one- 

 sided development. He even dares to declare anyone who 

 speaks of an intermediate form between man and apes to be 

 ignorant of the laws of development governing the race history 

 of mammals. He believes man came from some lemuroid 

 form, which may have descended from the insectivora." 

 ("Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist," pp. 188-190.) 



All known types, then, of apes and monkeys are too spe- 

 cialized to have been in the direct line of human descent. 

 Man, as Kohlbrugge ironically remarks, appears to have come 

 from an ancestor much more like himself than any species of 

 ape we know of. Moreover, no species of apes or monkeys 

 monopolizes the honors of closest resemblance to man. In many 

 points, the South American monkeys, though more primitive 

 than the anthropoid apes, are more similar to man than the 

 latter. 



§ 2. Embryological Resemblances 



Much has been made of the so-called biogenetic law as an 

 argument for the bestial origin of mankind. This theory of 

 the embryological recapitulation of racial history was first 

 formulated by Fritz Miiller. Haeckel, however, was the one 

 who exploited it most extensively, and who exalted it to the 

 status of "the fundamental law of biogenesis." ^ The latter's 

 statement of the principle is as follows: "Die Ontogenesis ist 

 die Palingenesis der Phylogenesis." — Ontogeny (the develop- 

 ment of the individual) is a recapitulation of phylogeny (the 

 development of the race). For a long time this law was 

 received with uncritical credulity by the scientific world, but 

 enthusiasm diminished when more careful studies made it 

 clear that the line of descent suggested by embryology did 



^Haeckel's "Biogenetisches Grundgesetz," which he formulates thus: 



"Die Ontogenie (Keimesgeschichte) ist eine kurze Wiederholung der 

 Phylogenie (Stammegeschichte)," 1874. 



