1^ 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



wider field of geological time have been con- 

 cerned in the production of the multitudinous 

 forms of animal life. That Haeckel's philos- 

 ophy goes but a very little way toward any 

 understanding of such relations, and that our 

 present information, even within the more lim- 

 ited scope of biological science, is too meagre 

 to permit of safe generalization, will appear 

 from the consideration of a few facts taken 

 here and there from the multitude employed 

 by him to illustrate the monistic theory. 



When we are told that a moner or an embryo- 

 cell is the early stage of all animals alike, we 

 naturally ask, Is it meant that all these cells 

 are really similar, or is it only that they appear 

 similar to us, and may actually be as profoundly 

 unlike as the animals which they are destined 

 to produce ? To make this question more 

 plain, let us take the case as formally stated : 

 " From the weighty fact that the ^^^ of the hu- 

 man being, like the ^'gg of all other animals, is 

 a simple cell, it may be quite certainly inferred 

 that a one-celled parent-form once existed, from 

 which all the many-celled animals, man included, 

 developed." 



Now, let us suppose that we have under our 

 microscope a one-celled animalcule quite as 



