ency
to eliminate the blastophthoric organs at the end of several
generations and to regenerate themselves little by little. Thanks to
the power of the ancestral mneme which tends to reestablish homophony.
However, the data on this subject are insufficient. In this case
homophony is represented by the normal equilibrium of the different
typical or normal characters of the species.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I insert here some passages intended for more advanced readers,
but this does not imply that they are of less importance. On the
contrary I strongly advise all my readers to try and understand the
theories of _Hering_ and _Semon_, which appear to me to throw a new
light on the question of transformation and heredity.

CHAPTER II

EVOLUTION OR DESCENT OF LIVING ORGANISMS

The theory of evolution is intimately associated with the name of
_Darwin_, for it was he who established it in the scientific world. In
reality, the idea of the transformation of organisms was put forward
by _Lamarck_ more than a century ago, but he did not sufficiently
support it. The theory of evolution states that the different animal
and vegetable species are not each of them specially created as such
from the first, but that they are connected with each other by a real
and profound relationship, and derived progressively one from another;
generally from more simple forms, by engraphia and selection. Man
himself is no exception to this rule, for he is closely related to the
higher apes.

It is no longer possible to-day to deny the fundamental fact which we
have just stated. Since _Darwin_, and as the result of the powerful
impulse which this man of genius gave to natural science, innumerable
observations and experiments have confirmed the truth of the
progressive evolution of living beings. Comparative anatomy,
comparative geography of plants and animals, comparative embryology,
and the study of the morphology and biology of a number of recently
discovered plants and animals, have built up more and more the
genealogical tree, or _phylogeny_, of living beings, that is to say
their ancestral lineage. The number of varieties and races or
sub-species increases indefinitely, the more closely they are
examined.

Researches on the fossil remains of species of animals and plants
which have been extinct for thousands and millions of years
(_palaeontology_) have also contributed to determine the trunk of the
great tree of former life. The numerou