Note 79 — ON TRANSFORMATION AND ADAPTATION IN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.[69]

C. E. von Baer, the subsequent opponent of Darwin and Haeckel, has discussed in two beautiful addresses (Das allgemeinste Gesetz der Natur in aller Entwickelung, and Welche Auffassung der lebenden Natur ist die richtige, und wie ist diese Auffassung auf die Entomologie anzuwenden?) the narrowness of the view which regards an animal in its existing state as finished and complete, instead of conceiving it as a phase in the series of evolutionary forms and regarding the species itself as a phase of the development of the animal world in general.