278 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



thing seemed to fit together in most beautiful order." (Quoted 

 by Dwight in ^Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist," p. 187.) 



It is undeniable, indeed, that in many cases the young of 

 higher animals pass through stages in which they bear at least 

 a superficial resemblance to adult stages in inferior and less 

 complex organisms. Obviously, however, there cannot be any 

 direct derivation of the emhryonic features of one organism 

 from the adult characters of another organism. This pre- 

 posterous implication of the Miiller-Haeckel Law must, as 

 Morgan points out, be entirely eliminated, before it can 

 merit serious consideration. Referring to the spiral cleavage 

 exhibited by annelid, planarian and molluscan eggs, Morgan 

 says: ''It has been found that the cleavage pattern has the 

 same general arrangement in the early stages of flat worms, 

 annelids and molluscs. Obviously these stages have never 

 been adult ancestors, and obviously if their resemblance has 

 any meaning at all, it is that each group has retained the same 

 general plan of cleavage possessed by their common ancestor, 

 . . . Perhaps someone will say, 'Well! is not this all that we 

 have contended for! Have you not reached the old conclusion 

 in a roundabout way?' I think not. To my mind there is a 

 wide difference between the old statement that the higher 

 animals living today have the original adult stages telescoped 

 into their embryos, and the statement that the resemblance 

 between certain characters in the embryos of higher animals 

 and corresponding stages in the embryos of lower animals is 

 most plausibly explained by the assumption that they have 

 descended from the same ancestors, and that their common 

 structures are embryonic survivals." {Op. cit., pp. 22, 23.) 



After this admission, however, nothing remains of the law 

 of "recapitulation" except simple embryological homology 

 comparable, in every sense, to adult homology, and adding 

 nothing essentially new to the latter argument for evolution. 

 It is, therefore, ridiculous for evolutionists to speak of bran- 

 chicd (gill) arches and clefts in man. The visceral or pharyn- 

 geal arches and grooves appearing in the human embryo are 



