ogenetic maxim also the consideration of those phenomena in the
ontogenetic development which are no recapitulation of the history {80} of
the stem, but originated by adapting the embryo to its surroundings. In the
description and explanation of this theory, he uses a term which throws
upon nature a peculiar reproach, never before made, namely: cenogeny, or
history of falsifications, in contrast to palingeny, or history of
abridgments. This amended formula now reads: The development of germs is an
abridgment of the development of stems, and is the more complete according
as the development of the abridgment is continued by inheritance, the less
complete according as the development of the false is introduced by
adaptation.

Now, we ask: Is this biogenetic maxim correct? and moreover, from the fact
of the organic individuals originating through development, are we entitled
to draw the conclusion that even the species must have originated through
development? To this question we can no longer get an answer from the
life-processes of living organisms; for we have already mentioned the fact
that, according to the present state of our knowledge, we can no longer
observe the origination of a new species. Moreover, the embryonic states of
development show also, in all their similarity, even in the very first
stages, and with especial distinctness in these first stages, many
differences between the single species; and this is true especially of
those species which, according to the followers of this so-called
biogenetic maxim, should lie in the same stem-line,--so that the direct
scientific value of the embryological results to the palaeontological
investigation, or of the latter to the former, is so far very slight. Such
a problem, however, as the one contained in that biogenetic maxim, which
only gives to investigators the _direction_ in which possibly an {81}
interesting and profitable path can be opened, does not at all deserve the
name of a "_law_." K. E. von Baer, the founder of the whole present science
of the history of development, has certainly a most competent judgment of
the correctness of this so-called biogenetic maxim; and he convincingly
shows, in his essay on "Darwin's Doctrine," that the embryos never
represent a former animalic form, but that their development follows the
principle of representing first the common characteristics of the class,
then those of the order, etc., until finally the individual characte