PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. 



These chapters on Antliropogeny are the first attempt 

 to render the facts of human germ-history accessible to a 

 wider circle of educated people, and to explain these facts 

 hy human trihal history. I have not overlooked the great 

 difficulty and danger involved in thus entering for the 

 first time on ground which is so especially full of risks. 

 No other branch of natural science yet remains so ex- 

 clusively confined to its own technical students ; no other 

 branch has been so wilfully obscured and • mystified, by 

 priestly influence, as has the germ-history of Man. If, 

 even now, we say that each human individual develops 

 from an egg, the only answer, even of most so-called edu- 

 cated men, will be an incredulous smile ; if we show them 

 the series of embryonic forms developed from this human 

 eg(y, their doubt will, as a rule, change into disgust. Few 

 educated men have any susx)icion. of the fact, that these 

 human embrj^os conceal a greater wealth of important 

 truths, and form a more abundant source of knowledge than 

 is afforded by the whole mass of most other sciences and 

 of all so-called ''revelations." 



