After this admission, however, nothing remains of the law of “recapitulation” except simple embryological homology comparable, in every sense, to adult homology, and adding nothing essentially new to the latter argument for evolution. It is, therefore, ridiculous for evolutionists to speak of _branchial_ (gill) arches and clefts in man. The visceral or pharyngeal arches and grooves appearing in the human embryo are unquestionably homologous with the genuine branchial arches and clefts in a fish embryo. In the latter, however, the grooves become real clefts through perforation, while the arches become the lamellæ of the permanent gills, thus adapting the animal to aquatic respiration. It is, accordingly, perfectly legitimate to refer to these embryonic structures in the young fish as gill arches and gill clefts. In man, however, the corresponding embryonic structures develop into the oral cavity, auditory meatus, ossicles of the ear, the mandible, the lower lip, the tongue, the cheek, the hyoid bone, the styloid process, the thymus, the thyroid and tracheal cartilages, etc. There is no perforation of the grooves, and the arches develop into something quite different than branchial lamellæ. Hence the correct name for these structures in the human embryo is _pharyngeal_ (visceral) arches and grooves, their superficial resemblance to the embryonic structures in the fish embryo being no justification for calling them branchial. In short, the mere fact that certain embryonic structures in the young fish (homologous to the pharyngeal arches and grooves in the human embryo) develop into the permanent gills of the adult fish, is no more significant than the association of homology with divergent preadaptations, which is of quite general occurrence among adult vertebrate types. In all such cases, we have instances of fundamentally identical structures, diverted, as it were, to entirely different purposes or functions (_e.g._ the arm of a man and the flipper of a whale). Hence the argument drawn from embryological homology is no more cogent than the argument drawn from the homologies of comparative anatomy, which we have already discussed in a previous chapter. The misuse of the term _branchial_, to prejudge matters in their own favor, is in keeping with the customary policy of evolutionists. It is intended, naturally, to convey the impression that man, in the course of his evolution, has passed through a fish-like stage. At bottom, however, it is nothing more than a verbal subterfuge, that need not detain us further.