SO-CALLED EMBRYONIC AND PROPHETIC TYPES. 8 1 



surface of the globe," '^' scarcely any solution is obtained. 

 Let us rather, with Riitimeyer in his admirable researches 

 on fossil horses,^^ allow our attention to be drawn by 

 these and similar facts " to a close connection between 

 the phases of development in the individual and in the 

 species," that is, to a natural connection. 



All who absolutely require a personal God in the cur- 

 rent history of creation, draw from these facts no other 

 inference than that their God had the whim of producing 

 at first imperfect and subsequently more and more per- 

 fect organisms, and of applying in the development of 

 the last reminiscences of the first. 



As worthless as the formula of embryonic types is 

 another, invented by Agassiz, for the shapes in which, 

 in some fossil groups, mechanical and physiological re- 

 sults were imperfectly obtained, and for which provision 

 is made in later organisms by other more adequate and 

 perfect arrangements. These are his " prophetic types." 

 The Pterodactyl is, for example, supposed to stand in 

 this relation towards the bird. Does this quibble aid in 

 the comprehension of either one or the other? Is any 

 rational idea obtained if, besides the prophecy of the 

 Pterodactyl, the geologically antecedent insect is regarded 

 as its prophet, or the bird as the forerunner of the bat? 

 There is no sense at all unless the prophet becomes 

 the progenitor, which in these cases cannot be sup- 

 posed. 



