SO-CALLED EMBRYONIC AND PROPHETIC TYPES. 8i 



IS the embryonic type of the elephant, which only transi- 

 torily possesses such teeth. If the term implies nothing 

 further than the vague assertion of "the working of 

 the same creative Mind through all times and upon the 

 whole surface of the globe," '* scarcely any solution is 

 obtained. Let us rather, with Riitimeyer in his admi- 

 rable researches on fossil horses, ''"' allow our attention to 

 be drawn by these and similar facts " to a close connec- 

 tion between the phases of development in the individual 

 and in the species," that is, to a natural connection. 



All who absolutely require a personal God in the 

 current history of creation, draw from these facts no 

 other inference than that their God had the whim of 

 producing at first imperfect and subsequently more and 

 more perfect organisms, and of applying in the develop- 

 ment of the last reminiscences of the first. 



As worthless as the formula of embryonic types is 

 another, invented by Agassiz, for the shapes in which, 

 in some fossil groups, mechanical and physiological 

 results were imperfectly obtained, and for which provi- 

 sion is made in later organisms by other more adequate 

 and perfect arrangements. These are his "prophetic 

 types." The Pterodactyl is, for example, supposed 

 to stand in this relation towards the bird. Does this 

 quibble aid in the comprehension of either one or the 

 other } Is any rational idea obtained if, besides the 

 prophecy of the Pterodactyl, the geologically antece- 

 dent insect is regarded as its prophet, or the bird as 

 the forerunner of the bat ? There is no sense at all 

 unless the prophet becomes the progenitor, which in 

 these cases cannot be supposed. 



