EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION 59 



that " Ontogeny, or the development of the 

 individual, is a shortened recapitulation of 

 phylogeny, or the evolution of the race." 



Even apart from recapitulation, we must 

 admit the suggestive general fact that the 

 developing organism passes through a series 

 of stages, which often differ from one another 

 in the same sort of way as related species 

 differ from one another. 



EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION. In his " Nova 

 Atlantis," that far-sighted Utopia of science 

 which has already been so largely realized, 

 Bacon suggested that experiments should 

 be set agoing hi order to discover how far 

 surroundings can affect and transform living 

 creatures ; and many naturalists have dreamed 

 of and pleaded for such an Institute 'of Experi- 

 mental Evolution. One such has lately been 

 founded in the United States, the precursor, it 

 is to be hoped, of many in Europe. " Since 

 Nature," said Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 " left to herself never allows us to witness modi- 

 fications of much magnitude in the conditions 

 of life, it is clear that only one way is open to 

 us if we wish to perceive such modifications 

 and to examine their effects on the organism ; 

 we must oblige Nature to perform that which 

 she would not spontaneously accomplish." 

 Good expositions of the results of various sets 



