212 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
discover those causes, and to trace them to the chemical and 
physical properties of matter. 
Among the phenomena of conservative transmission, we 
must now mention, as the fifth law, the law of abridged or 
simplified transmission. This law is very important in 
regard to embryology or ontogeny,.that is in regard to the 
history of the development of organic individuals. Onto- 
geny, or the history of the development of individuals, as I 
have already mentioned in the first chapter (p. 10), and as I 
subsequently shall explain more minutely, is nothing but 
a short and quick repetition of Phylogeny dependent on 
the laws of transmission and adaptation—that is, a repetition 
of the palzeontological history of development of the whole 
organic tribe, or phylum, to which the organism belongs. 
Tf, for example, we follow the individual development of a 
man, an ape, or any other higher mammal within the ma- 
ternal body from the egg, we find that the foetus or embryo 
arising out of the egg passes through a series of very differ- 
ent forms, which on the whole agrees with, or at least runs 
parallel to, a series of forms which is presented to us by the 
historical chain of ancestors of the highermammals. Among 
these ancestors we may mention certain fishes, amphibians, 
marsupials, etc. But the parallelism or agreement of these 
two series of development is never quite complete; on the 
contrary, in ontogeny there are always gaps and leaps which 
indicate the omission of certain stages belonging to the 
phylogeny. Fritz Miller, in his excellent work, “ Fir 
Darwin,” 1° has clearly shown in the case of the Crus- 
tacea, or crabs, that “the historical record preserved in the 
individual history of development is gradually obscured, 
in proportion as development takes a more and more direct 
