The History of Creation Volume I Part 11

Thus we see that here, and, in fact, in every other domain of systematic zoology and botany, the most arbitrary proceedings prevail, and, from the nature of the case, must prevail. For it is quite impossible accurately to distinguish varieties and races from so-called "good species." _Varieties are commencing species._ The variability or adaptability of species, under the influence of the struggle for life, necessitates the continual and progressive separation or differentiation of varieties, and the perpetual delimitation of new forms. Whenever these are maintained throughout a number of generations by inheritance, whilst the intermediate forms die out, they form independent "new species." The origin of new species by division of labour, or separation, divergence, or differentiation of varieties, is therefore a _necessary consequence of natural selection_.(37)

The same kind of interest attaches to a second great law which we deduce from natural selection, and which is, indeed, closely connected with the law of Divergence, but in no way identical with it; namely, the law of _Progress_ (progressus), or _Perfecting_ (teleosis). (Gen. Morph. ii.

257.) This great and important law, like the law of differentiation, had long been empirically established by palaeontological experience, before Darwin's Theory of Selection gave us the key to the explanation of its cause. The most distinguished palaeontologists have pointed out the law of progress as the most general result of their investigations of fossil organisms. This has been specially done by Bronn, whose investigations on the laws of construction(18) and the laws of the development(19) of organisms, although little heeded, are excellent, and deserve most careful consideration. The general results of the law of differentiation and the law of progress, at which Bronn arrived by a purely mechanical hypothesis, and by exceedingly accurate, laborious, and careful investigations, are brilliant confirmations of the truth of these two great laws which we deduce as necessary inferences from the theory of selection.

The law of progress or of perfecting establishes the exceedingly important fact, on the ground of palaeontological experience, that in successive periods of this earth's history, a continual increase in the perfection of organic formations has taken place. Since that inconceivably remote period in which life on our planet began with the spontaneous generation of Monera, organisms of all groups, both collectively as well as individually, have continually become more perfectly and highly developed. The steadily increasing variety of living forms has always been accompanied by progress in organization.

The lower the strata of the earth in which the remains of extinct animals and plants lie buried, that is, the older the strata are, the more simple and imperfect are the forms which they contain. This applies to organisms collectively, as well as to every single large or small group of them, setting aside, of course, those exceptions which are due to the process of degeneration, which we shall discuss hereafter.

As a confirmation of this law I shall mention only the most important of all animal groups, the tribe of vertebrate animals. The oldest fossil remains of vertebrate animals known to us belong to the lowest cla.s.s, that of Fishes. Upon these there followed later more perfect Amphibious animals, then Reptiles, and lastly, at a much later period, the most highly organized cla.s.ses of vertebrate animals, Birds and Mammals. Of the latter only the lowest and most imperfect forms, without placenta, appeared at first, such as are the pouched animals (Marsupials), and afterwards, at a much later period, the more perfect mammals, with placenta. Of these, also, at first only the lower kinds appeared, the higher forms later; and not until the late tertiary period did man gradually develop out of these last.

If we follow the historical development of the vegetable kingdom we shall find the same law operative there. Of plants there existed at first only the lowest and most imperfect cla.s.ses, the Algae or tangles.

Later there followed the group of Ferns or Filicinae (ferns, pole-reeds, scale-plants, etc.). But as yet there existed no flowering plants, or Phanerogama. These originated later with the Gymnosperms (firs and cycads), whose whole structure stands far below that of the other flowering plants (Angiosperms), and forms the transition from the group of fern-like plants to the Angiosperms. These latter developed at a still later date, and among them there were at first only flowering plants without corolla (Monocotyledons and Monochlamyds); only later were there flowering plants with a corolla (Dichlamyds). Finally, again, among these the lower polypetalous plants preceded the higher gamopetalous plants. The whole series thus const.i.tutes an irrefutable proof of the great law of progressive development.

Now, if we ask what is the cause of this fact, we again, just as in the case of differentiation, come back to natural selection in the struggle for life. If once more we consider the whole process of natural selection, how it operates through the complicated interaction of the different laws of Inheritance and Adaptation, we shall recognize not only divergence of character, but also the perfecting of structure to be the direct and necessary result of it. We can trace the same thing in the history of the human race. Here, too, it is natural and necessary that the progressive division of labour constantly furthers mankind, and urges every individual branch of human activity into new discoveries and improvements. This progress itself universally depends on differentiation, and is consequently, like it, a direct result of natural selection in the struggle for life.

CHAPTER XII.

LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIC TRIBES AND OF INDIVIDUALS. PHYLOGENY AND ONTOGENY.

Laws of the Development of Mankind: Differentiation and Perfecting.-Mechanical Cause of these two Fundamental Laws.-Progress without Differentiation, and Differentiation without Progress.-Origin of Rudimentary Organs by Non-use and Discontinuance of Habit.-Ontogenesis, or Individual Development of Organisms.-Its General Importance.-Ontogeny, or the Individual History of Development of Vertebrate Animals, including Man.-The Fructification of the Egg.-Formation of the three Germ Layers.-History of the Development of the Central Nervous System, of the Extremities, of the Branchial Arches, and of the Tail of Vertebrate Animals.-Causal Connection and Parallelism of Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis, that is of the Development of Individuals and Tribes.-Causal Connection of the Parallelism of Phylogenesis and of Systematic Development.-Parallelism of the three Organic Series of Development.

If man wishes to understand his position in nature, and to comprehend as natural facts his relations to the phenomena of the world cognisable by him, it is absolutely necessary that he should compare human with extra-human phenomena, and, above all, with animal phenomena. We have already seen that the exceedingly important physiological laws of Inheritance and Adaptation apply to the human organism in the same manner as to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and in both cases interact with one another. Consequently, natural selection in the struggle for life acts so as to transform human society, just as it modifies animals and plants, and in both cases constantly produces new forms. The comparison of the phenomena of human and animal transformation is especially interesting in connection with the laws of divergence and progress, the two fundamental laws which, at the end of the last chapter, we proved to be direct and necessary consequences of natural selection in the struggle for life.

A comparative survey of the history of nations, or what is called "universal history," will readily yield to us, as the first and most general result, evidence of a continually _increasing variety_ of human activities, both in the life of individuals and in that of families and states. This differentiation or separation, this constantly increasing divergence of human character and the form of human life, is caused by the ever advancing and more complete division of labour among individuals. While the most ancient and lowest stages of human civilization show us throughout the same rude and simple conditions, we see in every succeeding period of history, among different nations, a greater variety of customs, practices, and inst.i.tutions. The increasing division of labour necessitates an increasing variety of forms corresponding to it. This is expressed even in the formation of the human face. Among the lowest tribes of nations, most of the individuals resemble one another so much that European travellers often cannot distinguish them at all. With increasing civilization the physiognomy of individuals becomes differentiated, and finally, among the most highly civilized nations, the English and Germans, the divergence in the characters of the face is so great that we very rarely mistake one face for another.

The second great fundamental law which is obvious in the history of nations is the great law of progress or perfecting. Taken as a whole, the history of man is the history of his _progressive development_. It is true that everywhere and at all times we may notice individual retrogressions, or observe that crooked roads towards progress have been taken, which lead only towards one-sided and external perfecting, and thus deviate more and more from the higher goal of internal and enduring perfecting. However, on the whole, the movement of development of all mankind is and remains a progressive one, inasmuch as man continually removes himself further from his ape-like ancestors, and continually approaches nearer to his own ideal.

Now, if we wish to know what causes actually determine these two great laws of development in man, namely, the law of divergence and the law of progress, we must compare them with the corresponding laws of development in animals, and on a close examination we shall inevitably come to the conclusion that the phenomena, as well as their causes, are exactly the same in the two cases. The course of development in man, just as in that of animals, being directed by the two fundamental laws of differentiation and perfecting, is determined solely by purely mechanical causes, and is solely the necessary consequence of natural selection in the struggle for life.

Perhaps in the preceding discussion the question has presented itself to some-"Are not these two laws identical? Is not progress in all cases necessarily connected with divergence?" This question has often been answered in the affirmative, and Carl Ernst Bar, for example, one of the greatest investigators in the domain of the history of development, has set forth the following proposition as one of the princ.i.p.al laws in the ontogenesis of the animal body:-"The degree of development (or perfecting) depends on the stage of separation (or differentiation) of the parts."(20) Correct as this proposition may be on the whole, yet it is not universally true. In many individual cases it can be proved that divergence and progress by no means always coincide. _Every progress is not a differentiation, and every differentiation is not a progress._

Naturalists, guided by purely anatomical considerations, had already set forth the law relating to progress in organization, that the perfecting of an organism certainly depends, for the most part, upon the division of labour among the individual organs and parts of the body, but that there are also other organic transformations which determine a progress in organization. One, in particular, which has been generally recognized, is the _numerical diminution of identical parts_. If, for example, we compare the lower articulated animals of the crustacean group, which possess numerous pairs of legs, with spiders which never have more than four pairs of legs, and with insects which always possess only three pairs of legs, we find this law, for which a great number of examples could be adduced, confirmed. The numerical diminution of pairs of legs is a progress in the organization of articulated animals. In like manner the numerical diminution of corresponding vertebral joints in the trunk of vertebrate animals is a progress in their organization.

Fishes and amphibious animals with a very large number of identical vertebral joints are, for this very reason, less perfect and lower than birds and mammals, in which the vertebral joints, as a whole, are not only very much more differentiated, but in which the number of corresponding vertebrae is also much smaller. Further, according to the same law of numerical diminution, flowers with numerous stamens are more imperfect than the flowers of kindred plants with a smaller number of stamens, etc. If therefore originally a great number of h.o.m.ogeneous parts exist in an organic body, and if, in the course of very many generations, this number be gradually decreased, this transformation will be an example of perfecting.

Another law of progress, which is quite independent of differentiation, nay, even appears to a certain extent opposed to it, is the law of _centralization_. In general the whole organism is the more perfect the more it is organized as a unit, the more the parts are subordinate to the whole, and the more the functions and their organs are centralized.

Thus, for example, the system of blood-vessels is most perfect where a centralized heart exists. In like manner, the dense ma.s.s of marrow which forms the spinal cord of vertebrate animals, and the ventral cord of the higher articulated animals, is more perfect than the decentralized chain of ganglia of the lower articulated animals, and the scattered system of ganglia in the molluscs. Considering the difficulty of explaining these complicated laws of progress in detail, I cannot here enter upon a closer discussion of them, and must refer to Bronn's excellent "Morphologischen Studien," and to my "General Morphology" (Gen. Morph.

i. 370, 550; ii. 257-266).

Just as we have become acquainted with phenomena of progress, quite independent of divergence, so we shall, on the other hand, very often meet with divergencies which are not perfecting, but which are rather the contrary, that is retrogressions or degenerations. It is easy to see that the changes which every species of animal and plant experiences cannot always be improvements. But rather many phenomena of differentiation, which are of direct advantage to the organism itself, are yet, in a wider sense, detrimental, inasmuch as they lessen its general capabilities. Frequently a relapse to simpler conditions of life takes place, and by adaptation to them a divergence in a retrograde direction. If, for instance, organisms which have hitherto lived independently accustom themselves to a parasitical life, they thereby degenerate or retrograde. Such animals, which hitherto had possessed a well-developed nervous system and quick organs of sense, as well as the power of moving freely, lose these when they accustom themselves to a parasitical mode of life; they consequently retrograde more or less.

There the differentiation viewed by itself is a degeneration, although it is advantageous to the parasitical organism. In the struggle for life such an animal, which has accustomed itself to live at the expense of others, by retaining its eyes and apparatus of motion, which are of no more use to it, would only expend so much material uselessly; and when it loses these organs, then a great quant.i.ty of nourishment which was employed for the maintenance of these parts, benefits other parts. In the struggle for life between the different parasites, therefore, those which make least pretensions will have advantage over the others, and this favours their degeneration.

Just as this is found to be the case with the whole organism, so it is also with the parts of the body of an individual organism. A differentiation of parts, which leads to a partial degeneration, and finally even to the loss of individual organs, is, when looked at by itself, a degeneration, but yet may be advantageous to the organism in the struggle for life. It is easier to fight when useless baggage is thrown aside. Hence we meet everywhere, in the more highly-developed animal and vegetable bodies, processes of divergence, the essence of which is that they cause the degeneration, and finally the loss, of particular parts. And at this point the most important and instructive of all the series of phenomena bearing upon the history of organisms presents itself to us, namely, that of _rudimentary or degenerate organs_.

It will be remembered that even in my first chapter I considered this exceedingly remarkable series of phenomena, from a theoretical point of view, as one of the most important and most striking proofs of the truth of the doctrine of descent. We designated as rudimentary organs those parts of the body which are arranged for a definite purpose and yet are without function. Let me remind the reader of the eyes of those animals which live in the dark in caves and underground, and which consequently never can use them. In these animals we find real eyes hidden under the skin, frequently developed exactly as are the eyes of animals which really see; and yet these eyes never perform any function, indeed cannot, simply for the reason that they are covered by an opaque membrane, and consequently no ray of light falls upon them (compare above, p. 13). In the ancestors of these animals, which lived in open daylight, the eyes were well developed, covered by a transparent h.o.r.n.y capsule (cornea), and actually served the purpose of seeing. But as the animals gradually accustomed themselves to an underground mode of life, and withdrew from the daylight and no longer used their eyes, these became degenerated.

Very clear examples of rudimentary organs, moreover, are the wings of animals which cannot fly; for example, the wings of the running birds, like the ostrich, emeu, ca.s.sowary, etc., the legs of which have become exceedingly developed. These birds having lost the habit of flying, have consequently lost the use of their wings; however, the wings are still there, although in a crippled form. We very frequently find such crippled wings in the cla.s.s of insects, most members of which can fly.

From reasons derived from comparative anatomy and other circ.u.mstances, we can with certainty draw the inference that all insects now living (all dragon-flies, gra.s.shoppers, beetles, bees, bugs, flies, b.u.t.terflies, etc.) have originated from a single common parental form, from a primary insect which possessed two well-developed pairs of wings, and three pairs of legs. Yet there are very many insects in which either one or both pairs of wings have become more or less degenerated, and many in which they have even completely disappeared. For example, in the whole order of flies, or Diptera, the hinder pair of wings-in the bee-parasites, or Strepsiptera, on the other hand, the fore pair of wings-have become degenerated or entirely disappeared. Moreover, in every order of insects we find individual genera, or species, in which the wings have more or less degenerated or disappeared. The latter is the case especially in parasites. The females have frequently no wings, whereas the males have; for instance, in the case of glow-worms (Lampyris), Strepsiptera, etc. This partial or complete degeneration of the wings of insects has evidently arisen from natural selection in the struggle for life. For we find insects without wings living under circ.u.mstances where flying would be useless, or even decidedly injurious to them. If, for example, insects living on islands fly about much, it may easily happen that when flying they are blown into the sea by the wind, and if (as is always the case) the power of flying is differently developed in different individuals, then those which fly badly have an advantage over those which fly well; they are less easily blown into the sea, and remain longer in life than the individuals of the same species which fly well. In the course of many generations, by the action of natural selection, this circ.u.mstance must necessarily lead to a complete suppression of the wings. If this conclusion had been arrived at on purely theoretical grounds, we might be pleased to find its truth established by facts. For upon isolated islands the proportion of wingless insects to those possessing wings is surprisingly large, much larger than among the insects inhabiting continents. Thus, for example, according to Wollaston, of the 550 species of beetles which inhabit the island of Madeira, 220 are wingless, or possess such imperfect wings that they can no longer fly; and of the 29 genera which belong to that island exclusively, no less than 23 contain such species only. It is evident that this remarkable circ.u.mstance does not need to be explained by the special wisdom of the Creator, but is sufficiently accounted for by natural selection, because in this case the hereditary disuse of the wings, the discontinuance of flying in the presence of dangerous winds, has been very advantageous in the struggle for life. In other wingless insects the want of wings has been advantageous for other reasons.

Viewed by itself, the loss of wings is a degeneration, but in these special conditions of life it is advantageous to the organism in the struggle for life.

Among other rudimentary organs I may here, by way of example, further mention the lungs of serpents and serpent-like lizards. All vertebrate animals possessing lungs, such as amphibious animals, reptiles, birds, and mammals, have a pair of lungs, a right and a left one. But in cases where the body is exceedingly thin and elongated, as in serpents and serpent-like lizards, there is no room for the one lung by the side of the other, and it is an evident advantage to the mechanism of respiration if only one lung is developed. A single large lung here accomplishes more than two small ones side by side would do; and consequently, in these animals, we invariably find only the right or only the left lung fully developed. The other is completely aborted, although existing as a useless rudiment. In like manner, in all birds the right ovary is aborted and without function; only the left one is developed, and yields all the eggs.

I mentioned in the first chapter that man also possesses such useless and superfluous rudimentary organs, and I specified as such the muscles which move the ears. Another of them is the rudiment of the tail which man possesses in his 3-5 tail vertebrae, and which, in the human embryo, stands out prominently during the first two months of its development (compare Plates II. and III.). It afterwards becomes completely hidden.

The rudimentary little tail of man is an irrefutable proof of the fact that he is descended from tailed ancestors. In woman the tail is generally by one vertebra longer than in man. There still exist rudimentary muscles in the human tail which formerly moved it.

Another case of human rudimentary organs, only belonging to the male, and which obtains in like manner in all male mammals, is furnished by the mammary glands on the breast, which, as a rule, are active only in the female s.e.x. However, cases of different mammals are known, especially of men, sheep, and goats, in which the mammary glands were fully developed in the male s.e.x, and yielded milk as food for their offspring. I have already mentioned before (p. 12) that the rudimentary auricular muscles in man can still be employed to move their ears, by some persons who have perseveringly practised them. In fact, rudimentary organs are frequently very differently developed in different individuals of the same species; in some they are tolerably large, in others very small. This circ.u.mstance is very important for their explanation, as is also the other circ.u.mstance that generally in embryos, or in a very early period of life, they are much larger and stronger in proportion to the rest of the body than they are in fully developed and fully grown organisms. This can, in particular, be easily pointed out in the rudimentary s.e.xual organs of plants (stamens and pistil), which I have already mentioned. They are proportionately much larger in the young flower-bud than in the mature flower.

I have remarked (p. 15) that rudimentary or suppressed organs were the strongest supports of the monistic or mechanical conception of the universe. If its opponents, the dualists and teleologists, understood the immense significance of rudimentary organs, it would put them into a state of despair. Their ludicrous attempts to explain that rudimentary organs were given to organisms by the Creator "for the sake of symmetry," or "as a formal provision," or "in consideration of his general plan of creation," sufficiently prove the utter impotence of their perverse conception of the universe. I must here repeat that, even if we knew absolutely nothing of the other phenomena of development, we should be obliged to believe in the truth of the Theory of Descent, solely on the ground of the existence of rudimentary organs. Not one of its opponents has been able to throw even a feeble glimmer of an acceptable explanation upon these exceedingly remarkable and important phenomena. There is scarcely any highly developed animal or vegetable form which has not some rudimentary organs, and in most cases it can be shown that they are the products of natural selection, and that they have become suppressed by disuse. It is the reverse of the process of formation in which new organs arise from adaptation to certain conditions of life, and by the use of parts as yet incompletely developed. It is true our opponents usually maintain that the origin of altogether new parts is completely inexplicable by the Theory of Descent. However, I distinctly a.s.sert that to those who possess a knowledge of comparative anatomy and physiology this matter does not present the slightest difficulty. Every one who is familiar with comparative anatomy and the history of development will find as little difficulty about the origin of completely new organs as about the utter disappearance of rudimentary organs. The disappearance of the latter, viewed by itself, is the converse of the origin of the former. Both processes are particular phenomena of differentiation, which, like all others, can be explained quite simply and mechanically by the action of natural selection in the struggle for life.

The infinitely important study of rudimentary organs and their origin, the comparison of their palaeontological and embryological development, now naturally leads us to the consideration of one of the most important and instructive of all biological phenomena, namely, the parallelism which the phenomena of progress and divergence present to us in three different series. When, in the last chapter, we spoke of perfecting and division of labour, we understood by those words progress and separation, and those changes effected by them, which in the long and slow course of the earth's history have led to a continual variation of the flora and fauna, to the origin of new and to the disappearance of ancient species of animals and plants. Now, if we follow the origin, the development, and the life of every single organic individual, we meet with exactly the same phenomena of progress and differentiation. The individual development, or the _ontogenesis_ of every single organism, from the egg to the complete form is nothing but a growth attended by a series of diverging and progressive changes. This applies equally to animals, plants, and protista. If, for example, we consider the ontogeny of any mammal, of man, of an ape, or of a pouched animal, or if we follow the individual development of any other vertebrate animal of another cla.s.s, we everywhere find essentially the same phenomena. Every one of these animals develops itself originally out of a single cell, the egg. This cell increases by self-division, and forms a number of cells, and by the growth of this acc.u.mulation of cells, by the divergent development of originally identical cells, by the division of labour among them, and by their perfecting, there arises the perfect organism, the complicated composition of which excites our admiration.

It seems to me here indispensable to draw attention more closely to those infinitely important and interesting processes which accompany _ontogenesis, or the individual development of organisms_, and especially to that of vertebrate animals, man included. I wish especially to recommend these exceedingly remarkable and instructive phenomena to the reader's most careful consideration, first, because they are among the strongest supports of the Theory of Descent, and secondly, because, considering their immense general importance, they have hitherto been properly considered only by a few privileged persons.

We cannot indeed but be astonished when we consider the deep ignorance which still prevails, in the widest circles, about the facts of the individual development of man and organisms in general. These facts, the universal importance of which cannot be estimated too highly, were established, in their most important outlines, even more than a hundred years ago, in 1759, by the great German naturalist Caspar Friedriech Wolff, in his cla.s.sical "Theoria Generationis." But, just as Lamarck's Theory of Descent, founded in 1809, lay dormant for half a century, and was only awakened to new and imperishable life in 1859, by Darwin, in like manner Wolff's Theory of Epigenesis remained unknown for nearly half a century; and it was only after Oken, in 1806 had published his history of the development of the intestinal tube, and after Meckel, in 1812, had translated Wolff's work (written in Latin) on the same subject into German, that Wolff's theory of epigenesis became more generally known, and formed the foundation of all subsequent investigations of the history of individual development. The study of ontogenesis now received a great stimulus, and soon there appeared the cla.s.sical investigations of the two friends, Christian Pander (1817) and Carl Ernst Bar (1819).

Bar, in his remarkable "Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere,"(20) worked out the ontogeny of vertebrate animals in all its important facts. He carried out a series of such excellent observations, and ill.u.s.trated them by such profound philosophical reflections, that his work became the foundation for a thorough understanding of this important group of animals, to which, of course, man also belongs. The facts of embryology alone would be sufficient to solve the question of man's position in nature, which is the highest of all problems. Look attentively at and compare the eight figures which are represented on the adjoining Plates II. and III., and it will be seen that the philosophical importance of embryology cannot be too highly estimated.

We may well ask, What do our so-called "educated" circles, who think so much of the high civilization of the 19th century, know of these most important biological facts, of these indispensable foundations for understanding their own organism? How much do our speculative philosophers and theologians know about them, who fancy they can arrive at an understanding of the human organism by mere guesswork or divine inspiration? What indeed do the majority of naturalists, not excepting the majority of the so-called "zoologists" (including the entomologists!), know about them?

The answer to this question tells much to the shame of the persons above indicated, and we must confess, willingly or unwillingly, that these invaluable facts of human ontogeny are, even at the present day, utterly unknown to most people, or are in no way valued as they deserve to be.

It is in the face of such a condition of things as this that we see clearly upon what a wrong and one-sided road the much vaunted culture of the 19th century still moves. Ignorance and superst.i.tion are the foundations upon which most men construct their conception of their own organism and its relation to the totality of things; and these palpable facts of the history of development, which might throw the light of truth upon them, are ignored. It is true these facts are not calculated to excite approval among those who a.s.sume a thorough difference between man and the rest of nature, and who will not acknowledge the animal origin of the human race. That origin must be a very unpleasant truth to members of the ruling and privileged castes in those nations among which there exists an hereditary division of social cla.s.ses, in consequence of false ideas about the laws of inheritance. It is well known that, even in our day, in many civilized countries the idea of hereditary grades of rank goes so far, that, for example, the aristocracy imagine themselves to be of a nature totally different from that of ordinary citizens, and n.o.bles who commit a disgraceful offence are punished by being expelled from the caste of n.o.bles, and thrust down among the pariahs of "vulgar citizens." What are these n.o.bles to think of the n.o.ble blood which flows in their privileged veins, when they learn that all human embryos, those of n.o.bles as well as commoners, during the first two months of development, are scarcely distinguishable from the tailed embryos of dogs and other mammals?

As the object of these pages is solely to further the general knowledge of natural truths, and to spread, in wider circles, a natural conception of the relations of man to the rest of nature, I shall be justified if I do not pay any regard to the widely-spread prejudice in favour of an exceptional and privileged position for man in creation, and simply give here the embryological facts from which the reader will be able to draw conclusions affirming the groundlessness of those prejudices. I wish all the more to entreat him to reflect carefully upon these facts of ontogeny, as it is my firm conviction that a general knowledge of them can only promote the intellectual advance, and thereby the mental perfecting, of the human race.

Amidst all the infinitely rich and interesting material which lies before us in the ontogeny of vertebrate animals, that is, in the history of their individual development, I shall here confine myself to showing some of those facts which are of the greatest importance to the Theory of Descent in general, as well as in its special application to man. Man is at the beginning of his individual existence a simple egg, a single little cell, just the same as every animal organism which originates by s.e.xual generation. The human egg is essentially the same as that of all other mammals, and cannot be distinguished from the egg of the higher mammals. The egg represented in Fig. 5 might be that of a man or an ape as well as of a dog, a horse, or any other mammal. Not only the form and structure, but even the size of the egg in most mammals is the same as in man, namely, about the 120th part of an inch in diameter, so that the egg under favorable circ.u.mstances, with the naked eye, can just be perceived as a small speck. The differences which really exist between the eggs of different mammals and that of man do not consist in the form, but in the chemical mixture, in the molecular composition of the alb.u.minous combination of carbon, of which the egg essentially consists.

These minute individual differences of all eggs, which depend upon indirect or potential adaptation (and especially upon the law of individual adaptation), are indeed not directly perceptible to the exceedingly imperfect senses of man, but are cognisable through indirect means, as the primary causes of the difference of all individuals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5.-The human egg a hundred times enlarged. _a._ The kernel speck, or nucleolus (the so-called germinal spot of the egg).

_b._ Kernel, or nucleus (the so-called germinal vesicle of the egg).

_c._ Cell-substance, or protoplasm (so-called yolk of the egg). _d._ Cell-membrane (the yolk-membrane of the egg; in mammals, on account of its transparency, called zona pellucida). The eggs of other mammals are of the same form.]

The human egg is, like that of all other mammals, a small globular bladder, which contains all the const.i.tuent parts of a simple organic cell (Fig. 5). The most essential parts of it are the mucous cell-substance, or the protoplasma (_c_), which in an egg is called the "yolk," and the cell-kernel, or nucleus (_b_), surrounded by it, which is here called by the special name of the "germinal vesicle." The latter is a delicate, clear, gla.s.sy globule of alb.u.men, of about 1-600th part of an inch in diameter, and surrounds, a still smaller, sharply-marked, rounded granule (_a_), the kernel-speck, or the nucleolus of the cell (in the egg it is called the "germinal spot"). The outside of the globular egg-cell of a mammal is surrounded by a thick pellucid membrane, the cell-membrane or yolk-membrane, which here bears the special name of zona pellucida (_d_). The eggs of many lower animals (for example of many Medusae) differ from this in being _naked_ cells, as the outer covering, or cell-membrane, is wanting.

As soon as the egg (ovulum) of the mammal has attained its full maturity, it leaves the ovary of the female, in which it originates, and pa.s.ses into the oviduct, and through this narrow pa.s.sage into the wider pouch or womb (uterus). If, meanwhile, the egg is fructified by the male seed (sperm), it develops itself in this pouch into an embryo, and does not leave it until perfectly developed and capable of coming into the world at birth as a young mammal.

The variations of form and transformations which the fructified egg must go through within the uterus before it a.s.sumes the form of the mammal are exceedingly remarkable, and proceed from the beginning in man, in precisely the same way as in the other mammals. At first the fructified egg of the mammal acts as a single-celled organism, which is about to propagate independently and increase itself; for example, an Amba (compare Fig. 2, p. 188). In point of fact the simple egg-cell becomes two, by the process of cell-division which I have previously described.

There arise from the single germinal spot (the small kernel-speck of the original simple egg-cell) two new kernel-specks, and then in like manner, out of the germinal vesicle (the nucleus), two new cell-kernels.

Then, and not until then, does the globular protoplasma first separate itself by an equatorial furrow into two halves, in such a manner that each half encloses one of the two kernels, together with its kernel-speck. Thus the simple egg-cell, within the original cellular membrane, has become two naked cells, each possessing its own kernel (Fig. 6).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6.-First commencement of the development of a mammal's egg, the so-called "yolk-cleavage" (propagation of the egg-cell by repeated self-division). _A._ The egg, by the formation of the first furrow, falls into two cells. _B._ These by division fall into four cells. _C._ These latter have fallen into eight cells. _D._ By continued division a globular ma.s.s of numerous cells has arisen.]

The same process of cell-division now repeats itself several times in succession. In this way, from two cells (Fig. 6 _A_) there arise four (Fig. 6 _B_); from four, eight (Fig. 6 _C_); from eight, sixteen; from these, thirty-two, etc. Each time the division of the kernel-speck precedes that of the kernel; this, again, precedes that of the cell-substance, or protoplasma. As the division of the latter always commences with the formation of a superficial annular _furrow_, or cleft, the whole process is usually called the _furrowing of the egg_, or yolk-cleavage, and the products of it, that is, the cells arising from the continued halving, are called the _cleavage spheres_. However, the whole process is nothing more than a simple, oft-repeated _division of cells_, and the products of it are actual, naked _cells_. Finally, through the continued division or "furrowing" of the mammal's egg there arises a mulberry-shaped ball, which is composed of a great number of small spheres, naked cells, containing kernels (Fig. 6 _D_). These cells are the materials out of which the body of the young mammal is constructed. Every one of us has once been such a simple mulberry-shaped ball, composed only of small equi-formal cells.

The further development of the globular lump of cells, which now represents the young body of the mammal, consists first in its changing into a globular bladder, as fluid acc.u.mulates within it. This bladder is called the germ-bladder (vesicula blastodermica). Its wall is at first composed of merely equi-formal cells. But soon, at one point on the wall, arises a disc-shaped thickening, as the cells here increase rapidly, and this thickening is now the foundation of the actual body of the germ or embryo, while the other parts of the germ-bladder serve only for its nutrition. The thickened disc, or foundation of the embryo, soon a.s.sumes an oblong, and then a fiddle-shaped form, in consequence of its right and left walls becoming convex (Fig. 7, p. 304). At this stage of development in the first form of their germ or embryo, not only all mammals, including man, but even all vertebrate animals in general-birds, reptiles, amphibious animals, and fishes-can either not be distinguished from one another at all, or only by very unessential differences, such as the arrangement of the egg-coverings. In all the whole body consists of nothing but a quite simple, oblong, oval, or violin-shaped thin disc, which is composed of three closely connected membranes or plates, lying one above another. Each of the three plates or layers of the germ consists simply of cells all exactly like one another; but each layer has a different function in the building up of the vertebrate animal body. Out of the upper or outer germ-layer arises solely the outer skin (epidermis), together with the central parts of the nervous system (spinal marrow and brain); out of the lower or inner layer arises only the inner delicate skin (epithelium) which lines the whole intestinal tube from the mouth to the a.n.u.s, together with all the glands connected with it (lung, liver, salivary glands, etc.); out of the middle germ-layer lying between the two others arise all the other organs, muscles, bones, blood-vessels. Now, the processes by which the various and exceedingly complicated parts of the fully-formed body of vertebrate animals arise out of such simple material-out of the three germ-layers composed only of cells-are, in the first place, the repeated division, and consequently the increase of cells; in the second place, the division of labour or differentiation of these cells; and thirdly, the union of the variously developed or differentiated cells, for the formation of the different organs. Thus arises the gradual progress or perfecting which can be traced step by step in the development of the embryonic body. The simple embryonic cells, which are to const.i.tute the body of the vertebrate animal, stand in the same relation to each other as citizens who wish to found a state. Some take to one occupation, others to another, and work together for the good of the whole. By this division of labour, or differentiation, and the perfecting (the organic progress) which is connected with it, it becomes possible for the whole state to accomplish undertakings which would have been impossible to the single individual. The whole body of the vertebrate animal, like every other many-celled organism, is a republican state of cells, and consequently it can accomplish organic functions which the individual cell, as a solitary individual (for example, an Amba, or a single-celled plant), could never perform.