EVOLUTION

(Lat. evolvo, J unfold.) In Physiology, the theory of generation, in which the germ is held to preexist in the parent, and its parts to be unfolded and expanded,but not actually formed, by the procreative actf. The principal and most consistent supporters of this theory maintain that tie first created individuals contained the germs of all future po ible succe ors, succe ively included one within the other; and that generation is merely the act of unfolding, or an evolution of the germ: Swammerdam,this theory.Bonnet, Spallanzani, Haller, and Cuvier maintain The theory of evolution is opposed to that of epigenesis generation, in which Ihe germ is held to be actually formed as well as expanded by virtue of the procreative powers ol the parent. Its chief supporlers are Harvey, Caspar Fred Wolff, Blumenbach, and the profe ors of the modem German physiological school. Evolution, in Arithmelic and Algebra, denotes the extraction of roots. (<S"ee Extraction.) In Geometry, evolution is the opening or unfolding of a curve. EVOVjE. In Music, the vowels used with Ihe ending notes of the ecclesiastical tones: it is a word, for brevity's sake, formed of the six vowels in the words saculorum amen, which are subjoined to the notes in Antiphonarics, , to indicate that those are the ending notes. [s. 442]