重演律的兴衰史

The Vicissitude of the Theory of Recapitulation

海克尔关于“有机体个体发育是系统发育简短而又迅速的重演”的思想,曾为恩格斯所接受(参见于光远等译《自然辩证法》,1984版,第17页、289页),并在我国自然辩证法界有巨大影响。本文根据生物学的历史与现代生物学的进展,介绍了重演律的兴衰史,可供我国自然辩证法工作者作教学与研究的参考。

The putting forward of the theory of recapitulation in the nineteenth centuryreflected the facts that biology gradually freed itself from the influence of naturalpkilosophy and made progress in morphology, comparative anatomy and embryology,thus exerting a positive impact on the development of embryology and paleontology,and promoting the dissemination of Darwin′s evolution theory. But it lacks soundscientific basis to regard the theory of recapitulation as a universal law governingthe development of organism. Therefore, as a dominant theory in biology, it impededthe progress of embryology for quite a long time. This paper first gives a brief review of the historical development from the lawof parallelism to the theory of recapitulation, then makes a comprehensive appraisalof the historical significance of the latter.