Theories of Development 231 



sophisticated naivete, do not realize that they them- 

 selves have had a history, and were not always as 

 they now are. 



The humanistic standpoint is at bottom human 

 pride. It has an element of contempt for everything 

 outside itself. There is a suggestive connection 

 between humanism in this form and a Chinese wall. 

 So far as that human pride is based on high ideals, it 

 may spur the race onward; but certainly not before 

 the gates in the wall (eyes) have been opened. Hu- 

 manism is apt to lack that intellectual honesty which 

 alone can give permanent value to the products of 

 the human mind; for it merely asserts dogmatically, 

 with no honest effort to guard against possible error 

 or even to justify its standpoint. The history of 

 Oriental peoples as well as the history of Europe dur- 

 ing the Middle Ages, when humanism held sway, 

 shows how far its professed ideals fail of realization. 

 Craft, cunning, deceit, fraud, like concealed weapons, 

 were everywhere associated with even the ermine and 

 gold embroidery of the highest respectability. 



The Recapitulation Theory. Biologists, in studying 

 different forms of animal life, find that their form and 

 structure bear certain resemblances to one another, 

 especially within certain groups or types. A gradual 

 transition from one of these types to another is also 

 noticeable. Such similarity of structure is interesting 

 to the scientific student, because it points to a possible 

 relationship between different groups. 



Arranging such organisms according to their simi- 

 larity and differences, a series presents itself, showing 

 a gradual differentiation from the simpler to the more 

 complex. The distinguished embryologist, von Baer, 

 1828, in studying the development of the chick from 

 the egg up, found, on comparing it at different periods 

 of embryonic development with forms in the series 

 above referred to, that a striking similarity exists 



