THE "GENERAL MORPHOLOGY" 181 



and brains, not from abstract philosophical prin- 

 ciples. It could be demonstrated in the museum 

 or zoological institute to any student with some 

 knowledge of anatomy as easily as the existence 

 and position of any particular bone in the skeleton. 

 Haeckel went even further. 



He constructed a genealogical tree stretching far 

 below the apes. Next to them came the lemurs. 

 The lemur, the ghostly nocturnal inhabitant of 

 Madagascar, came from the Australian marsupial 

 (kangaroo, &c.). The marsupial came from the 

 duck-bill ; the duck-bill from the lizard ; the lizard 

 from the salamander ; the salamander from the 

 dipneust or mud-fish ; this from the sturgeon or the 

 shark, and the shark from the lamprey. Below 

 the lamprey, at the lowest limit of the vertebrate 

 kingdom, was the amphioxus (or lancelet). This 

 must have come from the worm it was not at all 

 clear how, at that time. And so the series ran on 

 down to the unicellular protozoa, the amoebse and 

 the monera. 



The construction of this tree would have been 

 impossible for one who had not already done 

 gigantic work. The whole of the new system of 

 animals and plants, conceived in the form of a 

 genealogical tree, had first to be sketched in outline. 

 Then the narrower thread that led up to man, the 

 Ariadne-thread of God-Nature, would gradually 

 come to light. 



Both ends of the system, the lower one in the 

 monera, the upper one in man, were first 

 thoroughly treated by him in 1865, and in part 



