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evolution as being a repetition of some hypo 

 thetical stage in the life of its ancestors, this 

 explanation must be the only possible one (!) 

 and it is my opinion that there is no such stage 

 in the ontogeny of man." Now, the riddle of 

 the sphinx is easy compared with this sybilline 

 language of Father Wasmann. And then, why 

 should he balk the great principle when he 

 comes to man? Was not the principle suf 

 ficiently proven to him in the case of the par 

 asites of the white ants ? In the " Discussion," 

 which was not discussed, but written out at his 

 leisure, Father Wasmann returns to the mys 

 tery of his words and this is how he interpets 

 them for Dr. Smith-Jena, who called his at 

 tention to the inconsistency. He says : " I 

 never recognized the biogenetic principle as such, 

 either in my third lecture nor in my book on 

 Biology and the Theory of Evolution. The instan 

 ces adduced by me, to which Dr. Smith-Jena 

 referred, were exceptional cases of relatively 

 rare occurrence, in which the development of the 

 individual gives us a clue to the evolution of 

 the species. But the fact that these are ex 

 ceptional and of rare occurrence shows that 



