50 The Recapitulation Theory and Human Infancy 



3. The facts are regarded as indicating resemblances between 

 present ontogenies and ancestral ontogenies. 



4. The third view is held, but cases of recapitulation are 

 admitted. 



(1) Montgomery's general denial of recapitulation on phys- 

 iological grounds has been noted and discussed in the section pre- 

 ceding. In an article written in 1897, Hurst takes an equally 

 radical position. 



"... .ontogeny is not an epitome, is not a record, either perfect 

 or imperfect, of past history, is not a recapitulation of the course 

 of evolution." 



Hurst's argument runs as follows: 



"In order that any structure of the adult which varies, and 

 hence ceases to exist as an adult structure at all, may become an 

 ontogenetic record of that adult structure, it is necessary that 

 variation should occur in a way utterly unlike the way in which 

 it does actually occur. The more the adult structure comes to 

 be unlike the adult structure of the ancestors, the more do the 

 late stages of development undergo a modification of the same 

 kind. This is not mere dogma, but is a simple paraphrase of 

 von Baer's law .... 



"In order to produce a 'record' it is necessary that new chapters 

 be added at the end of the pre-existing record. It is necessary, 

 in fact, that as the adult structure varies in one direction, the 

 late stages in development shall vary in another, so as to become, 

 not more like the new adult structure than they were before, 

 but more like the old ones. " 83 



In an article in reply to Hurst, in the same year, Bather makes 

 the following comment upon the former's argument: 



"This is hardly a fair statement of the case. It is not correct 

 to say that the late stages of development must vary in another 

 direction; for it surely is the case, in any series of parents and 

 offspring, which are varying in a given direction, and which we 

 may denote Al, A2, A3, An, that A6 is nearer to A7 than A5 is. 

 Consequently, if the latest stage of development of the form A7 

 resembles A6, it is necessarily more like A7 than a stage that 

 resembles A5. That is to say, on the Recapitulation Theory, 

 the stages of development vary in the same direction as the 

 adults." 84 



Bather substitutes for Hurst's method of variation that of 

 the Hyatt school, with which we are familiar, and then says, 



" Natural Science, Vol. II, 1893, pp. 197, 198. 

 « Natural Science, Vol. II, p. 278. 



