73 



like his acceptance and rejection at the same 

 time of evolution, and his attempted ejection 

 of Darwin from his own theory seems to us 

 highly capricious and wholly unreasonable. 

 This proof is what Father Wasmann calls "the 

 biogenetic principle," but which among evolu 

 tionists of the English school is known as the 

 argument from embryology. The absolute tyr 

 anny of the evolution theory was perhaps 

 never better exemplified than in Father Was- 

 mann's treatment of this "proof." Incident 

 ally, too, it demonstrates the inconsistency of 

 the Catholic evolutionist. Roughly this argu 

 ment is : that the individual organism in its 

 development from the cell to maturity passes 

 through all the stages of the evolution of the 

 race; or, as Father Wasmann puts it: "Ac 

 cording to it the development of the individ 

 ual is only an abbreviated and partially modi 

 fied reproduction of the development of the 

 race." Father Wasmann seems to accept this 

 as a principle when it suits him and to reject 

 when it does not suit him ; so that like evolu 

 tion we must regard it as spasmodic in its ac 

 tion. He says with full italicised emphasis : 



