MONISTIC EVOLUTION 143 



related to or caused by the improvement of the 

 limbs. 



It will be observed that in the above extract, 

 under the formula * the causes . . . must certainly be 

 found, all that other men would regard as demanding 

 proof is quietly assumed, and the animal grows before 

 our eyes from a fish to a reptile as under the wand of 

 a conjuror. Further, the transmission of the five toes 

 is attributed to heredity or unchanged reproduction ; 

 but this, of course, gives no explanation of the original 

 formation of the structure, nor of the causes which 

 prevented heredity from applying to the fishes which 

 became amphibians, and acquired five toes, or to the 

 amphibians which faithfully transmitted their five toes, 

 but not their other characteristics. 



It is perhaps scarcely necessary to follow further 

 the criticism of this extraordinary book. It may be 

 necessary, however, to repeat that it contains clear, 

 and in the main accurate, sketches of the embryology 

 of a number of animals, only slightly coloured by the 

 tendency to minimise differences. It may also be 

 necessary to say that in criticising Haeckel we take 

 him on his own ground that of a monist and have 

 no special reference to those many phases which the 

 philosophy of evolution assumes in the minds of 

 other naturalists, many of whom accept it only par 

 tially or as a form of mediate creation more or less 

 reconcilable with theism. To these more moderate 

 views no reference has been made, though there can be 



