tle doubt that the development of the individual is in some measure to be explained as a condensed recapitu

the Human Ear.

lation of the presumed racial evolution. In other words, the individual in its embryological development passes through with relative rapidity, the lower stages and the intermediate forms which took millions of years in the slower process of evolution for the species to achieve. In this sense, the embryological development of the in

dividual is a recapitulation of the life history of the

species.

During the early life of the human infant there are indications of considerable interest. In the development of the child after birth the spinal column has a single curve, as it does in apes and monkeys, instead of the S-shaped curve seen in adult human beings. The baby holds its feet in a position characteristic of the apes. For a few weeks after birth, the child has a remarkably strong finger-grip, recalling the strength with which the young apes grasp the mother's hair, as she climbs with them among the trees. The young baby is able to sustain its own weight by its hands. When it hangs in this manner it often shows a position of the legs which is strikingly apelike."

10

There is much more evidence along anatomical and embryological lines, but the character of this evidence has been sufficiently illustrated. The whole structure of man shows that he has arisen by differentiation from lower vertebrates. There seems to be "no scientific reason for separating man from the rest of the animal kingdom as regards the processes of evolution." 11 We do not yet know all the stages through which the human body passed in the process of its evolution, and we do not know many of the details by which his mental faculties have arisen from the lower condition of mind seen in other vertebrates; but the evidence which we do possess presents no serious reason for believing that the method of their evolution has been different in any fundamental regard from the methods by which the minds and bodies of other animals have been developed.12

9 See figure 12. 10 See figure 13.

11 Metcalf, op. cit., p. 170.
12 Ibid.

FIGURE 11. A Series of Embryos at Three Comparable and Progressive Stages of Development, representing Four Divisions of the Class-Mammalia.

In common with other animals "men often fail in the struggle for existence, become submerged and disappear. Natural selection operates among mankind to exterminate the unfit and to preserve the better adapted individuals who transmit to their children the characteristics

FIGURE 12. Portrait of a Young Male Child. Photographed from
life, when the mobile feet were for a short time at rest in a
position quite apelike.

which gave them advantage. Sexual selection is probably more operative in man than in any other animal species. Among men, especially civilized men, choice in marriage has come to be based less upon the physical attractions which appeal to the lower animals, and more largely upon intellectual and moral attractions. Sexual selection thus serves to increase and perpetuate these highly important characteristics.12a

12-a Jhid. p. 171.