APPENDIX E 243 



which consisted of a multitude of cells adherent for the common 

 benefit. When this organism reproduced, it would be by one or 

 more of its cells separating, and dividing into two adherent cells, 

 these into four, and so on, till the parent organism was repre- 

 sented. Ontogeny would thus necessarily recapitulate phylogeny. 

 This rule would still obtain when evolution proceeded farther, and 

 cells had become differentiated and specialised for the performance 

 of different functions. Every individual would still begin as a 

 single cell, the germ, and then, step by step, would represent 

 ancestor after ancestor, till at last he represented the last of the 

 race, the parent. The above view of heredity is necessary to my 

 argument, and apparently is opposed to other and more modern 

 theories which at present seem to hold the field — for instance, 

 Weismann's theory of Germinal Selection, or Mr Francis Galton's 

 theory that so much of an individual is derived from this ancestor, 

 so much from that, and so much more from a third. Every one 

 of these latter theories ignores what seems to me the patent fact 

 that the characters of all the ancestors are not commingled in the 

 final result, the adult, but that during ontogeny each ancestor is 

 represented in turn. It is true that, watching the development of 

 an individual, we cannot say that at such and such a point the 

 great-grandparent ends and the grandparent begins ; that at this 

 other point the grandparent ends, and behold — the parent. The 

 changes are too complex and subtle, too swift and fleeting; 

 moreover, at every turn the variations from his ancestry of the 

 individual under observation strike in and add to the apparent 

 confusion. 



It may be objected that the child during his development 

 does not represent exactly, nor even closely, any of his remote 

 ancestors, and this objection would appear fatal to the above 

 theory of heredity. On the other hand, any sufficient explanation 

 of this vagueness of representation will go far to establish, not 

 only this theory, but also that theory of retrogression which is the 

 subject of this article, and which, if it be a true theory, is, in a 

 humble way, the complement of the theory of evolution. 



Offspring, as we know, vary from their parents, and, if they 



