192 WALTER KIDD, ESQ., M.I)., F.Z.S., 



kaiyokincsis, sogmeutation of the ovum, gastrulatioii, forma- 

 tion of ectoderm and endoderm, a beautifully accurate 

 knowledge is obtained of this development. But the very 

 exactitude of the knowledge of embryology is the precise 

 reason which prevents this class of facts from lending any 

 aid to the general doctrine of organic evolution. Huxley 

 could say no more than " it is a probable hypothesis that 

 what the Avorld is to organisms in general, each organism 

 is to the molecules of which it is composed. Multitudes of 

 these, having diverse tendencies, are competing with one 

 another for opportunity to exist and multiply ; and the 

 organism, as a whole, is as much the product of the mole- 

 cules which are victorious as the fauna or flora of a country 

 is the product of the victorious organic beings in it."* This 

 is obviously no more than the opinion of an eminent man. 

 Among the developing cells of an embryo neither "struggle 

 for existence,'' " survival of the fittest," " variation " nor 

 " extinction " is proved to take place, and, by the terms of 

 the definition of epigenesis given above, even true analogy 

 to general organic evolution is absent. In the embryo there 

 is a definite and ascertained beginning, a fixed line of 

 development, a certain known type to which it is tending, 

 an adult or finished stage. In the production of species 

 according to the postulate of the evolutionist where is the 

 perfect type, or that which corresponds to the adult stage to 

 which an embryo tends ? The ambitious theorizing of 

 evolutionist teachers has indeed extended far into nebulous 

 regions, but they cannot with any regard for consistency 

 claim that organic evolution ends with man, and, if not, then 

 even the analogy of general with individual development fails 

 in an essential point. So that without proof, and without 

 complete analogy, this line of evidence is poor indeed. The 

 doctrine of recapitulation invented by Fritz ]\liiller teaches 

 that the development of the individual is an epitome of the 

 development of the race, that an embryo " climbs up its 

 genealogical tree" during its embryonic history, repeating 

 the steps of its ancestry in its own development. It is 

 taught by Romanes, by way of accounting for the great 

 gaps which are left in these ancestral histories, that a 

 foreshortening of the developmental history will take place, 

 and those steps which are not necessary, and which put too 



Critiques and Addresses, p. 309. 



