THE ASCENT OF THE BODY. 67 



embryo there is reproduced before our eyes a visible, 

 actual, physical representation of part of the life- 

 history of the world. Human Embryology is a con- 

 densed account, a recapitulation or epitome of some of 

 the main chapters in the Natural History of the world. 

 The same processes of development which once 

 took thousands of years for their consummation are 

 here condensed, foreshortened, concentrated into the 

 space of weeks. Each platform reached by the human 

 embryo in its upward course represents the embryo of 

 some lower animal which in some mysterious way has 

 played a part in the pedigree of the human race, which 

 may itself have disappeared long since from the earth, 

 but is now and forever built into the inmost being of 

 Man. These lower animals, each at its successive 

 stage, have stopped short in their development ; Man 

 has gone on. At each fresh advance his embryo is 

 found again abreast of some other animal-embryo a 

 little higher in organization than that just passed. 

 Continuing his ascent that also is overtaken, the now 

 very complex embryo making up to one animal-em- 

 bryo after another until it has distanced all in its series 

 and stands alone. As the modern stem- winding watch 

 contains the old clepsydra and all the most useful 

 features in all the timekeepers that were ever made ; 

 as the Walter printing-press contains the rude hand- 

 machine of Gutenberg, and all the best in all the 

 machines that followed it ; as the modern locomotive 

 of to-day contains the engine of Watt, the locomotive 

 of Hedley, and most of the improvements of succeeding 

 years, so Man contains the embryonic bodies of earlier 

 and humbler and clumsier forms of life. Yet in 

 making the Walter press in a modern workshop, the 



