17° Cells; or, Evolution. 



variation and survival from the simpler and the sim- 

 plest forms." We will only challenge this phrase- 

 ology so far as to discount for its looseness and 

 irregularity. There is not much harm in letting these 

 phrases go. There is policy in it. And I notice 

 that the paroxysm of admiration for " the secular 

 processes of the Darwinian laws" lasts only awhile. 

 Natura usque redibit, nature, and just common sense 

 return to assert themselves. For " the Darwinian 

 laws, by the way," adds the same writer, Dr. Dal- 

 linger, in the same place, " could not operate at all, 

 if caprice formed any part of the activities of 

 nature." 



190. The amount of truth to be admitted is this. 

 There has been progress in nature. In the first 



place, the whole development of this 



sim^iTtothe earth > and of a11 the life u P on it: > has 

 Complex. proceeded on the plan of beginning in 

 Haeckei's t k e s i m pi e sea-plant or lower forms of 



Phylogenesis. x * . 



animals, and ending in man; beginning 

 with even an embryonic simplicity, and, like an 

 embryo that proceeds from the simple to the com- 

 plex, advancing to a general prevalence of complex 

 organizations over the world. 



191. This fact so stated is what suggested to 

 Professor Haeckel his argument of phylogenesis, ac- 

 cording to which, every embryo represents, in the 

 stages of its development, the different species 

 through which its ancestors passed, from the original 

 formless cell up to its present specific form. The 



