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Updated: May 29, 2025
The intimate relations that exist between all parts of organic science, especially the direct causal nexus between the two sections of evolution ontogeny and phylogeny were explained in that work for the first time by transformism, and were interpreted philosophically in the light of the theory of descent. However imperfect this attempt was, it provided a starting-point for further investigation.
Comparative anatomy and ontogeny show us how the wonderful structure of this last, the organ of our human soul, has in the course of millions of years been gradually built up from the brains of higher and lower vertebrates. Comparative psychology teaches us how, hand in hand therewith, the soul itself, as function of the brain, has been developed.
Even Professor Haeckel, of the famous University of Jena, would not deny this, with all that his new terms "ontogeny" and "phylogeny" may imply. When potential life passed over into actual life in the individual Plato, it was not the pabulum that assimilated the man, but the man the pabulum.
We have previously seen how this very rudimentary beginning of the skull in man is formed ontogenetically from the "head-plates," and thus the fore end of the chorda is enclosed in the base of the skull. The phylogeny of the skull has made great progress during the last three decades through the joint attainments of comparative anatomy, ontogeny, and paleontology.
The extinct Protamniote, the ancestor of the whole group, belongs in its whole organisation to the reptile class. The genealogical tree of the amniote group is clearly indicated in its chief lines by their paleontology, comparative anatomy, and ontogeny. The group succeeding the Protamniote divided into two branches. The branch that will claim our whole interest is the class of the Mammals.
But as one needs a thorough knowledge of the intricate structure of the whole vascular system in man and the other Vertebrates in order to follow this with profit, we cannot go into it further here. Moreover, many important features in the ontogeny of the vascular system are still very obscure and controverted.
The presence of that element produces in the individual an associative recall of the adaptation of his species that is, the brain pattern developed by his phylogeny becomes energized to make a specific response. The intensity of the response depends upon the state of threshold that is, upon the associative recall of the individual's own experience his ontogeny.
Thus through the innumerable symbols supplied by environment the distance ceptors drive this or that animal according to the type of brain pattern and the particular state of threshold which has been developed in that animal by its phylogenetic and ontogenetic experiences. The brain pattern depends upon his phylogeny, the state of threshold upon his ontogeny.
But in these writings his main argument is that of his concluding chapter: the spontaneous adaptiveness of the organism, which nullifies all contingent theories to explain the purposiveness in ontogeny and phylogeny.
The embryonic development of the muscles, or ACTIVE organs of locomotion, is not less interesting than that of the skeleton, or PASSIVE organs. But the comparative anatomy and ontogeny of the muscular system are much more difficult and inaccessible, and consequently have hitherto been less studied. We can therefore only draw some general phylogenetic conclusions therefrom.
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