MOWISM A ND E VOL U TION. 247 



by what are termed amoeboid communities, " simple 

 societies of homogeneous, undifferentiated cells." 

 Under the action of a favorable environment, these 

 amoebae developed into various larval or gastrula 

 forms, and these, in turn, by the action of inherent 

 forces, evolved into worms, and -into animals similar 

 to our modern sea-squirts, lancelets, lampreys, sharks 

 and mud-fish. The mud-fish, or its prototype, a 

 kind of salamander fish, was followed by animals 

 nearly related to existing sirens, axolotls, and by a 

 cross between tailed amphibians and beaked ani- 

 mals, the precursor of the monotremata. The next 

 in the order of succession were marsupials or pouched 

 animals, semi-apes ; tailed, narrow-nosed apes ; tail- 

 less, narrow-nosed apes, or men-like apes ; speechless 

 men, or ape-like men ; and finally, as the culmination 

 of all, the crown and glory of the genealogical tree, 

 whose germ was but a simple speck of slime, or plas- 

 son, we have homo sapiens man, dowered with the 

 power of reason and articulate speech. 1 



The twenty-two parent forms of the human an- 

 cestral line indicated by Haeckel are, we are assured, 

 but a few of those which actually existed. They are 



1 In marked contrast with the atheistic, mechanical theory 

 of Haeckel are the views entertained by Darwin's great rival, 

 Alfred Russel Wallace. Writing in his " Darwinism," chap, 

 xv., of " the introduction of sensation or consciousness," as 

 "constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms," he expresses himself as follows : 

 " Here, all idea of mere complication of structure producing the 

 result is out of the question. We feel it to be altogether prepos- 

 terous to assume, that at a certain stage of complexity of atomic 

 constitution, and as a necessary result of that complexity alone, 

 an ego should start into existence a thing that feels, that is 

 conscious of its own existence, Here we have the certainty that 



