SO-CALLED EMBRYONIC AND PROPHETIC TYPES. 81 
is the embryonic type of the elephant, which only transi- 
torily possesses such teeth. If the term implies nothing 
further than the vague assertion of “the working of 
the same creative Mind through all times and upon the 
whole surface of the glebe,”” scarcely any solution is 
obtained. Let us rather, with Riitimeyer in his admi- 
rable researches on fossil horses,'* allow our attention to 
be drawn by these and similar facts “to a close connec- 
tion 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 
current 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 perfect organisms, and of applying in the devclop- 
ment 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 
results were imperfectly obtained, and for which provi- 
sion 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 antece- 
dent 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 supposed. 
