CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



emerge not tadpoles but little frogs, which resemble their 

 parents. If, however, we dissect off the membranes of develop- 

 ing eggs we find within them tadpoles, complete, with their 

 characteristic tails. 



The earliest stages in development are the most delicate 

 and vulnerable, and it is these which first become embryonic; 

 the latest stages in development, which represent compara- 

 tively recent ancestral history, are always larval. In human 

 development, as we all know, the baby is an embryo for 

 nine months before birth, and after it is born the child may 

 be justly termed a larva until the beginning of puberty. 

 The mental powers are not fully developed until the child 

 reaches the age of about fifteen years. 



During the period of its life within the womb the human 

 embryo develops a large organ like a sucker, which is closely 

 pressed against the wall of the womb and which enables the 

 tiny baby to suck nourishment from its mother's blood. 

 This sucker, which is called the placenta, is developed from 

 the belly of the embryo, which is thereby distorted out of 

 shape. Now no one imagines that some ancestor of man 

 went about through life with a placenta protruding from its 

 under surface; the placenta is a secondary outgrowth to 

 enable the embryo to live in the womb. Such "secondary" 

 changes are known as falsifications of development; they may 

 be likened to interpolations made by some later writer in an 

 ancient historical document. But during the time that the 

 embryo carries this extraordinary appendage, protruding 

 from its under surface, its upper surface passes through a 

 most interesting series of changes. Its mouth at first resem- 

 bles that of a shark, and the nostrils, as in the shark, are 

 connected with the edges of the mouth by grooves. Then 

 the head grows to be like that of the tadpole, and, just as in 

 the young tadpole, this head is divided from the body by a 



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