THE RECAPITULATION THEORY 291 



the highest animals. Consider this, and it becomes 

 easy to understand the fascination which embry- 

 ology exercises over those who study it. 



But all this is of trifling moment compared with 

 the great generalisation which tells us that the 

 development of animals has a far higher meaning ; 

 that the several embryological stages and the order 

 of their occurrence are no mere accidents, but are 

 forced on an animal in accordance with a law, the 

 determination of which ranks as one of the greatest 

 achievements of biological science. The doctrine 

 of descent, or of Evolution, teaches us that as 

 individual animals arise, aig_l spontaneously, but by 

 direct descent from pre-existing' animals, so also is 

 it with species, with families, and with larger 

 groups of animals, and sjajalso has it been for all 

 time ; that as the animals of succeeding generations 

 are related together, so also are those of successive 

 geologic periods ; that, all animals, living or that 

 have lived, are united together by blood relation- 

 ship of varying nearness or remoteness ; and that 

 every animal now in existence has a pedigree 

 stretching back, not merely for ten or a hundred 

 generations, but through all geologic time since the 

 dawn of life on this globe. 



[_JThe study of Development, in its turn, has 

 revealed to us that each animal bears the mark of 

 its ancestry, and is compelled to discover its 

 parentage in its own development ; that the phases 

 through which an animal passes in its progress 

 from the egg to the adult are no accidental freaks, 

 no mere matters of developmental convenience, but 



