40 THE HISTORY OF CREATIOK 



accumulation of cells, and out of these, by division of 

 labour (as has previously been described), there arise 

 the numberless different forms which are presented to us 

 in the fully developed animal and vegetable species. This 

 immensely important process — which we may follow step 

 by step, with our own eyes, any day in the embryological 

 development of any animal or vegetable individual, and 

 which as a rule is by no means considered with the 

 reverence it deserves — informs us more surely and com- 

 pletely than all petrifactions could do as to the original 

 palaeontological development of all many-celled organisms, 

 that is, of all higher animals and plants. For as ontogeny, 

 or the embryological development of every single individual, 

 is essentially only a recapitulation of phylogeny, or the 

 pal aeon tological development of its chain of ancestors, we 

 may at once, with full assurance, draw the simple and 

 important conclusion, that all many-celled anionals and 

 playits were originally derived from single-celled organisms. 

 The primaeval ancestors of man, as well as of all other 

 animals, and of all plants composed of many cells, were simple 

 cells living isolated. This invaluable secret of the organic 

 pedigree is revealed to us with infallible certainty by the 

 egg of animals, and by the true egg-cell of plants. When the 

 opponents of the Theory of Descent assert it to be miraculous 

 and inconceivable that an exceedingly complicated many- 

 celled organism could, in the course of time, have proceeded 

 from a simple single-celled organism, we at once reply that we 

 may see this incredible miracle at any moment, and follow it 

 with our own eyes. For the embryology of animals and 

 plants visibly presents to our eyes in the shortest space of 

 time the same process as that which has taken place in the 



