THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



through gills. A great number of higher animals 

 assume again in the egg, or in the mother's 

 womb, certain forms which we meet on a much 

 lower and more ancient plane. A bird in the egg 

 shows for a while a great mass of vertebrae, in 

 its tail which once characterized the extinct bird- 

 lizard ( Archaopteryx) , a transition form be- 

 tween lizard and bird, existing millions of years 

 ago. * Haeckel has called this peculiar fact, which x 

 recurs in innumerable cases and truly indicates 

 a general and lawful connection, the "biogenetic 

 principle," and this term has become fairly popu-^ 

 lar to-day. x 



Well, then, the very first observers noticed 

 that the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang- 

 outang, resemble man more in proportion as 

 they are younger. The giant gorilla, which is 

 the most ferocious and bestial of all anthropoid 

 apes in old age, resembles in its baby stage the 

 human being so closely that even the layman 

 who has never thought about these things is 

 surprised. In view of the biogenetic law, this 

 would indicate that these anthropoid apes are 

 descended from an ancestor who was still more 

 manlike than they are to-day. And the point is 

 finally clinched by some facts which the scientist, 

 Emil Selenka, has recently discovered in regard 



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