MONISTIC EVOLUTION I47 



degraded by the fall rather than in an ape capable of higher 

 development and progress. It is a matter of taste, and such 

 genealogical preferences do not therefore admit of discus 

 sion. It is more to my individual taste to be the more 

 highly developed descendant of an ape, who in the struggle 

 tor existence had developed progressively from lower mam 

 mals as they from still lower vertebrates, than the degraded 

 descendant of an Adam, God-like but debased by the fall 

 who was formed from a clod of earth, and of an Eve created 

 from a rib of Adam. As regards the celebrated &amp;lt; rib, I 

 must here expressly add, as a supplement to the history of 

 the development of the skeleton, that the number of ribs is 

 the same in man and in woman. 1 In the latter as well as 

 in the former the ribs originate from the skin-fibrous layer, 

 and are to be regarded phylogenetically as lower or ventral 4 

 vertebra. 2 



There is no accounting for tastes, yet we may be 

 pardoned for retaining some preference for the first 

 link of the old Jewish genealogical table which was 

 the son of Adam, which was the son of God. As to 

 the debasement of the fall, it is to be feared that the 

 aboriginal ape would object to bearing the blame of 

 existing human iniquities as having arisen from any 

 improvement in his nature and habits; and it is 

 scarcely fair to speak of Adam as formed from a clod 

 of earth, which is not precisely in accordance with the 

 record. As to the rib/ which seems so offensive to 

 Haeckel, one would have thought that he would, as 

 an evolutionist, have had some fellow-feeling in this 



1 It was scarcely necessary to refer to this childish conception, 

 unless the individual skeleton of Adam had been in question. 

 - Kathtr, vertebral arches. 



K 2 



