THE LANCELET AS THE MOST ANCIENT VERTEBRATE. 463 



important points of their embryonic development does not 

 only testify their close anatomical form-relationship and 

 their connection in the system ; it* also testifies their true 

 blood-relationship and their common origin from one and 

 the same parent form; and hence it at the same time 

 throws a flood of light upon the earliest origin of human 

 genealogy.-^^* 



Writing in 1868 " on the origin and genealogy of the 

 human race," I insisted upon the extraordinary importance 

 of this circumstance, and declared that we must accordingly 

 " regard the Amphioxus with special veneration as that 

 animal which alone of all extant animals can enable us to 

 form an approximate conception of our earliest Silurian 

 vertebrate ancestors." This proposition has given very 

 gTeat offence, not only to unscientific theologians, but also 

 to many others, especially such philosophers as still cherish 

 the anthropocentric error, and who look on man as the fore- 

 ordained object of " creation," and as the true final cause of 

 all terrestrial life. The " dignity of humanity," it was said 

 in a church newspaper, is, by such a statement as mine, 

 "trodden underfoot, and the divine rational conscience of 

 man grievously hurt." 



This indignation at my honest and deep respect for the 

 Amphioxus is, I am free to confess, quite incomprehensible 

 to me. If, on entering a grove of ancient oaks, we express 

 reverence for these venerable trees, the life of which has 

 endured a thousand years, no one thinks this unnatural 

 Yet how high above the oak does the Amphioxus, or even 

 tho Ascidian organization, stand in this respect ! And what 

 are the thousand years of life of a venerable oak compared 

 with the many millions of years the history of which is told 



