132 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



to eventually sweep the field. I will therefore trace the zoogenetic lineage of 

 man after Haeckel's schedule, as concisely as possible. 



The studies and researches in the science of embryology for more than two 

 hundred years past, by De Graaf (1672), Leuwenhock (Spermatazoa, 1674), Pur- 

 kinge, Von Baer, Agassiz, and many others, had wrought out the fact or general 

 law that the embryo of each species of animals passes through stages and forms of 

 structure simulating successively the typical forms that are below it in the scale 

 of animal progress; and Man is no exception to the rule. Haeckel verifies this 

 general law, but brings out some new and important points or theories with re- 

 gard to this law of ontogenesis in general, and to the case of Man in particular. 

 He traces the line of genetic succession, or the "connecting links," systematical- 

 ly down through all the geological ages, to the uttermost primordial inception of 

 organic matter in the lurid and steaming muddy ooze of the pristine seas. 



Scientists are now fairly agreed that protoplasm is the primordial form or 

 condition of all organic matter, whether animal or vegetable; and Haeckel uses 

 the term moner, to designate the ultimate particles of organic matter, as distin- 

 guished from atom the ultimate particle of inorganic matter. Eight genera of 

 moners are now known and classified — and of course others may yet be dis- 

 covered. Some of them are animal moners, some vegetable, and some neu- 

 tral. A moner, then, is the last term, the absolute lowest, the very uttermost 

 primordial form of organic matter. All embryos, all living creatures start 

 here. So he calls the "Moner" stage of life stage one in the creational line 

 which ultimates in Man — both as to the individual man born to-day, and as to 

 the species Man in geological time. For the law of evolution, the law of heredi- 

 ty, and the law of embryology all converge into -this one zoogenetic rule : — The 

 growth-history and experiences of the individual of any species is in a general 

 way the history and experience of the species to which that individual belongs. 



From this first stage, or animal moner, comes the form of life called Arnxbay 

 which is merely an aggregation or community of animal moners. You will find 

 the amoebae described in any of our recent text-books on zoology ; and they are 

 generally regarded as the lowest form of animal life. It is a very minute or mi- 

 croscopic creature ; and if you should look at it through a good microscope you 

 would see at first what seemed to be only a bit of jelly, or slimy substance, of no 

 certain form, and apparently inanimate. But presently at some part of its surface 

 it begins to bulge, and it keeps on bulging until a rude sort of finger has been 

 protruded. Perhaps it will touch some particle that may serve it as nourishment; 

 then that bulged finger will bend a little and hug or clasp the nutrient particle to 

 the body, and there it is dissolved, absorbed and assimilated into the substance 

 of the creature, and the finger having, done its work, melts back into the general 

 body again. The amoeba has no mouth, no nose, no eye, ear, heart, stomach 

 or bowels; no head or tail, no arms, legs or fins, it is simply a speck of animated 

 jelly or slime-like mucos matter, sometimes called also sarcode, that improvises 

 an arm or finger and a stomach at any part of its surface where occaision for it 



