1 32 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



gardcd as a wonderful evidence of the homology or 

 unity of plan which pervades nature, and as consti 

 tuting man the archetype of the animal kingdom 

 the highest realisation of a plan previously sketched 

 by the Creator in many ruder and humbler forms. 

 It also teaches that it is not so much in the mere 

 bodily organism that we are to look for the distinguish 

 ing characters of humanity as in the higher rational 

 and moral nature. 



i~feut Haeckel, like other evolutionists of the monis 

 tic and agnostic schools, goes far beyond this. The 

 ontogeny, on the evidence of analogy, as already ex 

 plained, is nothing less than a miniature representa 

 tion of the phylogenyT 7 Man must in the long ages 

 of geological time have arisen from a monad, just as 

 the individual man has in his life-history arisen from 

 an embryo-cell, and the several stages through which 

 the individual passes must be parallel to those in the 

 history of the race. True, the supposed monad must 

 have been wanting in all the conditions of origin, 

 sexual fertilisation, parental influence, and surround 

 ings. There is no perceptible relation of cause and 

 effect, any more than between the rotation of a car 

 riage-wheel and that of the earth on its axis. The 

 analogy might prompt to inquiries as to common 

 laws and similarities of operation, but it proves 

 nothing as to causation. 



In default of such proof, Haeckel favours us 

 with another analogy derived from the science of 



