primitive ancestor can be reconstructed. But as it 

 is not my intention to burden the reader with tech- 

 nicalities, I will pass over the method of procedure 

 and come at once to a brief recapitulation of the 

 results. Later, in my laboratory, we will give closer 

 attention to certain of those steps that lead to these 

 results. 



It is reasonable to suppose that the primitive 

 echinoderm sprang from some ancestor proportion- 

 ately longer than it was broad and which was 

 symmetrically alike on both sides; features such as 

 distinguish the worm. Now, as the reader has 

 doubtless suspected, and certainly as he will fully 

 discover before proceeding much further, I am con- 

 vinced of evolution. Still when I assert that it is 

 "reasonable to suppose" a worm-like creature as 

 the prehistoric parent of the present serpent-star, 

 I do so not merely because of a blind faith in 

 words, in the dicta of the learned doctors, arm- 

 chair theorists whose knowledge of Nature is 

 largely gained from long and arduous rumination 

 in front of a museum cabinet-shelf; it is rather in 

 spite of them, it is because I have tried to sift at 

 first hand, for my own satisfaction, the evidence 

 that tends toward this view. I am a naturalist; and 



[90] 



