We have now very briefly reviewed the principal outlines of the ancestors of man, showing that man has developed from the little mass of protoplasm, as have all animals and plants. He therefore was not _spontaneously_ created, but was developed. The question is often asked by simple-minded people, with much delight, Why do we not behold the interesting spectacle of the transformation of a chimpanzee into a man, or conversely of a man by retrogression into an orang?--it only shows that they are not acquainted with the first principles of the Doctrine of Descent. "Not one of the apes," says Schmidt, "can revert to the state of his primordial ancestors, except by retrogression--by which a primordial condition is by no means attained--he cannot divest himself of his acquired characters fixed by heredity, nor can he exceed himself and become man; for man does not stand in the direct line of development from the ape. The development of the anthropoid apes has taken a lateral course from the nearest human progenitors, and man can as little be transformed into a gorilla as a squirrel can be changed into a rat." [Illustration: FIG. I.--Salamandra Maculata.--_Haeckel_. The Water Newts and Salamanders were the next higher stage after the Proteus and the Axolotl.] [Illustration: FIG. I.--Represents Primæval Amniota (Protamnia). Lizard (Lacerta), after _Orton_.] [Illustration: FIG. II.--Represents Primary Mammals (Promammalia). AMNIOTA SERIES. Duck-billed Platypus (Ornithorhynchus paradoxus).--_Haeckel_.] "Feeling evidently,"[17] says Haeckel, "rather than understanding, induces most people to combat the theory of their 'descent from apes.' It is simply because the organism of the ape appears a caricature of man, a distorted likeness of ourselves in a not very attractive form; because the customary æsthetic ideas and self-glorification of man are touched by this in so sensitive a point, that most men shrink from recognizing their descent from apes. It seems much pleasanter to be descended from a more highly developed divine being, and hence, as is well known, human vanity has from the earliest times flattered itself by assuming the original descent of the race from gods or demi-gods." EVOLUTION. In the last chapter a description was given of the various stages in man's development, from the microscopic monad up. It will be necessary now to describe briefly the various laws which have governed this evolutionary chain from the monad to man. But before proceeding directly to the subject, let us look at the doctrine of evolution as a whole, and trace it first in the formation of the world.