72 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



In default of such proof, Haeckel favors us 

 with another analogy, derived from the science 

 of language. All the Indo-European lan- 

 guages are believed to be descended from 

 a common ancestral tongue, and this is anal- 

 ogous to the descent of all animals from one 

 primitive species. But unfortunately the lan- 

 guages in question are the expressions of the 

 voice and the thought of one and the same 

 species. The individuals using them are known 

 historically to have descended by ordinary gen- 

 eration from a common source, and the con- 

 necting-links of the various dialects are un- 

 broken. The analog}!^ fails altogether in the 

 case of species succeeding each other in geo- 

 logical time, unless the very thing to be proved 

 is taken for granted in the outset. 



The actual proof that a basis exists in nature 

 for the doctrine of evolution founded on these 

 analogies, might be threefold. First. There 

 might be changes of the nature of phylogenesis 

 going on under our own observation, and even 

 a very few of these would be sufficient to give 

 some show of probability. Elaborate attempts 

 have been made to show that variations, as 

 existing in the more variable of our domes- 

 ticated species, lead in che direction of such 



