THE RECAPITULATION THEORY 299 



of their extinct representatives in past geological 

 times." 



This point of view is of the utmost importance. 

 If the development of an animal is really a repeti- 

 tion of its ancestral history, then it is clear that the 

 agreement or parallelism which Agassiz insists on 

 between the embryological and palaeontological 

 records must hold good. Owing to the attitude 

 which Agassiz subsequently adopted with regard 

 to the theory of Natural Selection, there is some 

 fear of his services in this respect failing to receive 

 full recognition, and it must not be forgotten that 

 the sentence I have quoted was written prior to 

 the clear enunciation of the Recapitulation Theory 

 by Fritz Miiller. 



The imperfection of the geological record has 

 been often referred to and lamented. It is very 

 true that our museums afford us but fragmentary 

 pictures of life in past ages ; that the earliest 

 volumes of the history are lost, and that of others 

 but a few torn pages remain to us ; but the later 

 records are in far more satisfactory condition. The 

 actual number of specimens accumulated from the 

 more recent formations is prodigious ; facilities for 

 consulting them are far greater than they were ; 

 the international brotherhood of science is now 

 fully established, and the fault will be ours if the 

 material and opportunities now forthcoming are not 

 rightly and fully utilised. 



By judicious selection of groups in which long 

 series of specimens can be obtained, and in which 

 the hard skeletal parts, which alone can be suitably 



