Harvard University Press Gould, S: Ontogeny and Phylogeny

“Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” was Haeckel’s answer to 19th-century biology’s most vexing question: what is the relationship between individual development and the evolution of species and lineages? Gould documents the history of the idea of recapitulation from its first appearance among the pre-Socratics to its fall in the early 20th century.