SUMMARY OF PROOFS. 35 



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anatomy and the history of develo'pment, the harmonious 

 agreement between the laws of the gradual development, 

 the progressive differentiation and perfecting, as they 

 may be seen in comparative anatomy on the one hand, in 

 ontogeny and palseontology on the other. 



(6.) Dysteleology , or the theory of purposelessness, the 

 name I have given to the science of rudimentary organs, of 

 suppressed and degenerated, aimless and inactive, parts of 

 the body ; one of the most important and most interesting- 

 branches of comparative anatomy, which, when rightly 

 estimated, is alone sufficient to refute the fundamental error 

 of the teleological and dualistic conception of Nature, and 

 to serve as the fotmdation of the mechanical and monistic 

 conception of the universe. 



(7.) The natural system of organisms, the natiu'al group- 

 ing of all the different forms of Animals, Plants, and Protista 

 into numerous smaller or larger groups, arranged beside and 

 above one another ; the kindred connection of species, 

 genera, families, orders, classes, tribes, etc., more especially, 

 however, the arboriform branching character of the natural 

 system, which is the spontaneous result of a natural arrange- 

 ment and classification of all these graduated groups or 

 categories. The result attained in attempting to exhibit 

 the relationships of the mere forms of organisms by a 

 tabular classification is only explicable when regarded as 

 the expression of their actual blood relationship ; the tree 

 shape of the natural system can only be understood as the 

 actual pedigree of the organisms. 



(8.) The chorology of organisms, the science of the local 

 distribution of organic species, of their geographical and 

 topographical dispersion over the surface of the earth, over 



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