ontogeny, and a great advance upon succeeding generations in this respect. In the case of most of these discoveries he did not merely describe the fact, but added a number of observations on its significance. Some of these theoretical remarks are of particular interest, because they show a correct appreciation of the nature of the embryonic processes. He conceives the development of the individual as a new formation, in the course of which the various parts of the body take shape successively. When the human or animal frame is developed in the mother’s body, or separately in an egg, the heart—which he regards as the starting-point and centre of the organism—must appear first. Once the heart is formed the other organs arise, the internal ones before the external, the upper (those above the diaphragm) before the lower (or those beneath the diaphragm). The brain is formed at an early stage, and the eyes grow out of it. These observations are quite correct. And, if we try to form some idea from these data of Aristotle’s general conception of the embryonic process, we find a dim prevision of the theory which Wolff showed 2000 years afterwards to be the correct view. It is significant, for instance, that Aristotle denied the eternity of the individual in any respect. He said that the species or genus, the group of similar individuals, might be eternal, but the individual itself is temporary. It comes into being in the act of procreation, and passes away at death. During the 2000 years after Aristotle no progress whatever was made in general zoology, or in embryology in particular. People were content to read, copy, translate, and comment on Aristotle. Scarcely a single independent effort at research was made in the whole of the period. During the Middle Ages the spread of strong religious beliefs put formidable obstacles in the way of independent scientific investigation. There was no question of resuming the advance of biology. Even when human anatomy began to stir itself once more in the sixteenth century, and independent research was resumed into the structure of the developed body, anatomists did not dare to extend their inquiries to the unformed body, the embryo, and its development. There were many reasons for the prevailing horror of such studies. It is natural enough, when we remember that a Bull of Boniface VIII excommunicated every man who ventured to dissect a human corpse. If the dissection of a developed body were a crime to be thus punished, how much more dreadful must it have seemed to deal with the embryonic body still enclosed in the womb, which the Creator himself had decently veiled from the curiosity of the scientist! The Christian Church, then putting many thousands to death for unbelief, had a shrewd presentiment of the menace that science contained against its authority. It was powerful enough to see that its rival did not grow too quickly.