COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



ferences are less striking than those which sepa- 

 rate the two mammals on the one hand from 

 the reptile and bird on the other. At a later 

 stage the human embryo becomes still more 

 unlike that of the dog, acquiring characteristics 

 peculiar to the order of primates to which man 

 belongs. Lastly, the fetus of civilized man, at 

 seven months, is entirely human in appearance, 

 but still has not thoroughly acquired the phy- 

 sical attributes which distinguish the civilized 

 man from the Australian or the negro. 



On the evolution theory these phenomena are 

 explicable as due to the integration or sum- 

 ming-up of adaptive processes, by which modifi- 

 cations slowly acquired through generations of 

 ancestral organisms are more and more rapidly 

 repeated in the embryos. Hence, as Professor 

 Haeckel has elaborately proved, we must ex- 

 pect to find the phenomena of embryology in 

 complete harmony with the facts of the geologi- 

 cal succession of organisms. Observation shows 

 that the harmony is complete ; and again, unless 

 we are to suppose that the phenomena of nature 

 have been maliciously arranged with the ex- 

 press purpose of cheating us, we have no choice 

 but to accept that harmony as proof of the truth 

 of the evolution theory. 



Kindred evidence is furnished by the well- 

 known fact that many animals, during their 

 fcetal life, acquire organs like those possessed 

 396 



