4 

 The Recapitulation Theory in Biology 29 



(a) The Facts of Palaeontology. 



In the discussion of the views of Darwin reference was made 

 to his expressed sympathy for the belief of Agassiz in the 

 embryonic character of extinct forms. As late as the year 

 1872 Darwin said, "We may hope hereafter to see this law 

 proved true." Commenting on this point an eminent Eng- 

 lish embryologist, Sedgwick, says, "But as Huxley has shown 

 and as the whole course of palaeontological investigation has 

 demonstrated, no such statement can be made. The extinct 

 forms of life are very similar to those now existing and there 

 is nothing specially embryonic about them. So that the facts, 

 as we know them, lend no support to theory." 44 The reference 

 to Huxley in this quotation is made to papers written in the 

 years 1855 and 1862. In the second paper Huxley wrote "An 

 impartial survey of positively ascertained truth then negatives 

 the common doctrines of progressive modification, or a neces- 

 sary progress from more or less embryonic forms .... it 

 either shows us no evidence of any such modification or demon- 

 strates it to have been very slight." 45 



Passing the question as to whether Huxley's views may have 

 undergone a change of emphasis later with the accession of new 

 facts, we may compare with the statement of Sedgwick the 

 opinions of a distinguished German palaeontologist. Zittel, 

 writing on Palaeontology and the Biogenetic Law, in 1895, says, 

 after referring to the immense advantages that would accrue 

 to palaeontology if this law could be strictly used, 



"If we consult palaeontology, it shows that these surmises 

 are by no means confirmed. There are, indeed, a great number 

 .of fossil genera which retain throughout life the embryonic, or, 

 rather, the youthful characters of their existing allies, but it is 

 only among the mammals, and to some extent among the rep- 

 tiles, that I could name a complete series of forms following one 

 another in time and belonging to the same line of development. 

 The Eocene, Oligocene, and, in part also, even the Miocene 

 Mammalia stand to their now existing allies, for the most part, 

 in* the relation of youthful forms, while they, almost without 

 exception, exhibit at least some characters which are quickly 

 passed through by their geologically younger successors in the 

 embryonic or youthful stage. The ontogeny of organisms now 



M In Darwin and Modern Science, 1909, p. 174. 

 Scientific Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 528. 



