EMBRYOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
By Edwin Grant Conklin
Professor of Biology, Princeton University
In early times and among primitive peoples all phenomena were regarded as supernatural. The rising and setting of the sun, the sweet influence of the Pleiades, the coming and going of the winds, storms, lightning, thunder—all the phenomena of life, birth, and death—were supposed to be directly controlled by gods or spirits. In the course of centuries many such events were seen to be natural—that is, lawful or orderly—and were more or less understood, so that gradually the supernatural withdrew to the misty mountain tops of origins. During the last two or three centuries enlightened people everywhere have come to realize that ordinary phenomena occur in accordance with natural laws. But in the matter of beginnings and origins the opinion is still widely held that they do not happen in accordance with nature, but only in response to supernatural action.
The Nature of Development
Even such a constantly recurring phenomenon as the origin of the individual human being was by many regarded as a supernatural phenomenon until a little more than a hundred years ago; and even today many intelligent people believe that the mind and soul of every person is supernaturally created, though few, if any, would go so far as to maintain
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