"Why it is that animals, instead of developing……" — Francis Maitland Balfour

"Why it is that animals, instead of developing in a simple and straightforward way, undergo in the course of their growth a series of complicated changes, during which they often acquire organs which have no function, and which, after remaining visible for a short time, disappear without leaving a trace ... To the Darwinian, the explanation of such facts is obvious. The stage when the tadpole breathes by gills is a repetition of the stage when the ancestors of the frog had not advanced in the scale of development beyond a fish."

— Francis Maitland Balfour

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3 Quotes by Francis Maitland Balfour

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