and well-considered and show a decided deviation from the 

 Darwinian position. Above all we are pleased to note that 

 he appropriates Spencer's phrase regarding the "Impot- 

 ence of Natural Selection" and that in the citation from 

 Huxley he at least admits the possibility that the Darwin- 

 ian doctrine will be "wafted away." 



It is also proper to mention here the fact that in an- 

 other place Hertwig no longer recognizes so fully the dog- 

 ma set up by Fritz Mueller and Haeckel which is so closely 

 bound up with Darwinism. I mean the so-called "bioge- 

 netic principle" according to which the individual organ- 

 ism is supposed to repeat in its development the develop- 

 ment of the race during the course of ages. 



In his book: "The Cell and the Tissue" (Die Zelle 

 iind die Gewebe, II. Jena 1898, p. 273) Hertwig says: "We 

 must drop the expression: 'repetition of forms of extinct 

 ancestors' and employ instead: repetition of forms which 

 accord with the laws of organic development and lead from 

 the simple to the complex. We must lay special emphasis 

 on the point that in the embryonic forms even as in the 

 developed animal forms general laws of the development 

 of the organized body-substance find expression." 



Any one can subscribe to these statements; in truth 

 they contain something totally different from the "biogen- 

 etic principle"; for Haeckel has really no interest in so 

 general a truth, but is intent only upon a proof of Descent. 



Hertwig continues: "In order to make our train of 

 thought clear, let us take the egg-cell. Since the develop- 



143 



