THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI 123 



porters of the Darwinian theory have been satisfied to 

 build castles in the air, which they have been obliged 

 to pull down in rapid succession. ... It is only in a 

 few orders of the animal kingdom that we have even 

 the first beginnings of the needed paleontological and 

 embryological material to serve as the basis for the 

 comparisons which might lead to some definite results. 

 Yet these comparisons are generally instituted on such 

 a grand scale, and with such utter disregard of the ex- 

 ceptions, that their authors can hardly expect us to 

 follow them in the paths they tread, where theory 

 takes the place of observation. No one appreciates more 

 than I do that the explanation of the theory of evolu- 

 tion, as given by Darwin, has opened up new fields of 

 observation in many departments of biology, the im- 

 portance of which can hardly be overestimated. . . . 

 But his disciples cannot ask us to take as proved beyond 

 question all the vagaries regarding this and that ances- 

 tor of the great animal kingdom, about which they talk 

 with such sublime confidence. And when I am intro- 

 duced to an archetype in a group where we have neither 

 paleontological nor embryological evidence, or when I 

 am asked to believe in a genealogical tree of which 

 neither the roots nor the branches have ever existed, as 

 far as we now know, I am no longer dealing simply 

 with an hypothesis, but with the wildest speculation." 



