The Recapitulation Theory in Biology 45 



recapitulation of the phylogeny, not even a recapitulation 

 marred at occasional points by secondary change." 73 



According to Comings the error latent in the views of Montgom- 

 ery is the confusion of morphology with physiology. 



"The confusion arising from this source colors all the argument 

 of Montgomery, in which he endeavors to prove that new specific 

 characters must have some representation in the ovum a view 

 which we must certainly agree with and that therefore 'the 

 whole row' of cells from the ovum to the adult must be different. 

 We grant that the 'whole row' is different in some way, different 

 in the play of energies; but it may conceivably be morphologi- 

 cally identical up to the very point where the new character 

 is added. It is just as easy to conceive that the energy, or what- 

 ever we choose to call it, that is at a certain stage of development 

 to produce a certain rib or spine or color-band on the shell of a 

 gastropod, may be handed through the row of cells reaching up 

 to the given stage, without producing a single recognizable 

 morphological change in the row, as compared with the individual 

 that is not to possess the new character, as it is to conceive the 

 opposite. The argument for the one view is just as a priori 

 as the argument for the other view. It is also perfectly conceiv- 

 able that the morphology of the individual cells in the row might 

 differ after the acquisition of the new character (in so far as this 

 assumption is required by recent cytological studies), and yet 

 not a single organ or part of the organism be different up to the 

 stage in ontogeny when the new character appears. Unless, 

 therefore, a change in the energies of the cells inevitably neces- 

 sitates a change in the morphology of all the cells or all the organs 

 which they compose, the argument of Montgomery proves 

 nothing." 7 * 



The argument between Montgomery and Cumings apparent- 

 ly labors with difficulties of a logical character as well as with 

 issues of fact, and suggests the desirability of clear concep- 

 tions of the business of intelligence in the presence of the truly 

 genetic phenomena of development. By carrying back in thought 

 to the germ cell all the derivative complexities of the adult, 

 Montgomery succeeds in imputing to it and to all the interven- 

 ing stages a correlative complexity out of keeping with the ob- 

 vious simpler conditions of the earlier ontogenetic stages. By a 

 similar logical extreme Cumings conceives a segregation of the 

 physiological "energies" from the objective morphological 



"Analysis of Racial Descent, pp. 191, 192. 



' Indiana Acad. of Science, 19OS-09, pp. 310, 311. 



