64 THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF 



science of embryology affords perhaps the 

 strongest of all the strong arguments in favour 

 of evolution. From the nature of the case, 

 however, the evidence under this head requires 

 special training to appreciate ; so I will merely 

 observe, in general terms, that the higher animals 

 almost invariably pass through the same embryo- 

 logical stages as the lower ones, up to the time 

 when the higher animal begins to assume its 

 higher characters. Thus, for instance, to take 

 the case of the highest animal, man, his develop- 

 ment begins from a speck of living matter 

 similar to that from which the development 

 of a plant begins. And, when his animality 

 becomes established, he exhibits the fundamental 

 anatomical qualities which characterise such 

 lowly animals as the jelly-fish. Next he is marked 

 off as a vertebrate, but it cannot be said whether 

 he is to be a fish, a snake, a bird or a beast. Later 

 on it is evident that he is to be a mammal ; but 



