CHAPTER VII - PROOFS FROM EMBRYOLOGY, OR COMPARISON IN THE ONTOGENIC SERIES

Summary

It is a curious and most significant fact that the successive stages of the development of the individual in the higher forms of any group (ontogenic series) resemble the stages of increasing complexity of differentiated structure in ascending the animal scale in that group (taxonomic series), and especially the forms and structure of animals of that group in successive geological epochs (phylogenic series). In other words, the individual higher animal in embryonic development passes through temporary stages, which are similar in many respects to permanent or mature conditions in some of the lower forms in the same group. To give one example for the sake of clearness: The frog, in its early stages of embryonic development, is essentially a fish, and if it stopped at this stage would be so called and classed. But it does not stop; for this is a temporary stage, not a permanent condition. It passes through the fish stage and through several other temporary stages, which we shall explain hereafter, and onward to the highest condition attained by amphibians. Now, if we could trace perfectly the successive forms of amphibians, back through the geological epochs to their origin in the Carboniferous, the resemblance of this series to the stages of the development of a frog would doubtless be still closer. Surely this fact, if it be a fact, is wholly inexplicable except by the theory of derivation or evolution.