CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



should require the notes of some immortal angelic observer 

 who had watched the process of evolution for ages and had 

 left us a record of his observations! All our evidence must 

 therefore be indirect and circumstantial, and it may be divided 

 into three main groups — (l) evidence from the systematic 

 relations of allied species, (2) evidence from fossils (palae- 

 ontology), and (3) evidence from the development of the 

 individual (embryology). The evidence comprised under the 

 first two heads is presented elsewhere in this book; it is my 

 task to present the evidence or argument from embryology. 



The embryological argument rests on a daring hypothesis, 

 which was first clearly expounded by Haeckel in what he 

 termed the jundamental law of biogenetics, which he enun- 

 ciated as follows: Every animal, in its growth from the Qgg 

 to maturity, recapitulates the history of the race. Therefore, 

 when we find in the embryo, during its growth, stages that 

 resemble animals lower in the scale of life, this resemblance 

 is regarded as evidence that the animal whose embryo we 

 are studying was derived from ancestors that resembled those 

 stages. 



When we take a broad survey of the animal kingdom we 

 find that it can be divided into great primary divisions 

 termed phyla. The bodies of all the members of a phylum 

 are constructed on the same plan. A good example of a 

 phylum is provided by the Arthropoda, the jointed animals. 

 This group comprises all the insects, spiders, mites, scorpions, 

 centipedes, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, barnacles, and water- 

 fleas; in fact, it includes three-fourths of the species of ani- 

 mals now living on the globe. All these animals have, out- 

 side their flesh, a hard, shelly skeleton, which is divided into 

 joints by 2ones of thinner shell, as otherwise the animal could 

 not bend itself or move. All likewise posse3S several pairs 

 of limbs, which, like the body, are encased in similar armour 



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