PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XXX\ 



half a century ago accompanied his well-known " History 

 of the Evolution of Animals," have been more serviceable 

 in rendering the matter intelligible than all the numerous 

 and very careful figures, elaborated with the aid of 

 camera lucida, which now adorn the splendid and costly 

 atlases of His, Goette, and others. If it is said that my 

 diagrammatic figures are "inaccurate," and a charge of 

 " falsifying science " is brought against me, this is equally 

 true of all the very numerous diagrams which are daily used 

 in teaching. All diagrammatic figures are "inaccurate." 



The important advances in many different directions 

 made during the last two years, both by germ-history and 

 tribal history, especially the reconstruction of the germ- 

 layer theory and the development of the Gastrsea theory, 

 have compelled me essentially to modify the second and 

 third sections of the Anthropogeny. Chapters VIII., IX., 

 XVI., and XIX. especially appear in a new form ; but even 

 in Sections I. and IX. I have been compelled to modify 

 much and to improve many parts. At the same time I 

 have exerted myself to the utmost, by improving the formal 

 exposition, to render the extremely dry and unacceptable 

 matter more interesting. This is, of course, an unusally 

 hard task, and I am well aware how far even this third 

 edition, in spite of all my efforts, is from affording a really 

 popularly intelligible explanation of the Ontogeny and 

 Phylogeny of Man. Because the defective natural scien- 

 tific instruction in our schools, even in the present day, 

 leaves educated men quite or nearly ignorant of the struc- 

 ture and arrangement of their bodies, the anatomical and 

 physiological foundation is usually wanting, on which alone 

 a true knowledge of human germ-history, and consequently 



