Metamorphoses of man and the lower animals / by A. de Quatrefages ; translated by Henry Lawson.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Metamorphoses of man and the lower animals / by A. de Quatrefages ; translated by Henry Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    CHAPTER XXIII. GENERAL CONSIDEEATIONS. CONCLUSION. We liave briefly analyzed tlie three great phenomena presented by the animal kingdom in the development of living beings. Resuming what we have already stated in regard to each of them, we perceive that transformation presents itself in all^ and that it alone is concerned in the development of most of the higher animals. Metamorphosis jDi'operly so called_, comes next, but it is fundamentally a phenomenon of trans- formation which occm^s beneath our eyes, instead of taking place in the depths of the organism, or when concealed by the envelopes of the ovum. Then genea- genesis presents itself; but from being essentially con- nected with the processes of growth and progressive individualization, it is for that reason associated with the two other phenomena. Thus we may with certainty repeat what we asserted in the commencement of this work, that transformation, metamorjpjiosisj and geneagenesis, are but three forms of one and the same phenomenon, that they bring about the same consequences, and terminate in the same result. The conversion of a rudimentary germ into a com- plete individual is the final end and object of these changes of form and proportions. Hence it follows that general metamor]jliosis is essentially progressive.