412 ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



The importance of embryological characters and of 

 rudimentary organs in classification is intelligible, on 

 the view that an arrangement is only so far natural as 

 it is genealogical. 



Finally, the several classes of facts which have been 

 considered in this chapter, seem to me to proclaim so 

 plainly, that the innumerable species, genera, and 

 families of organic beings, with which this world is 

 peopled, have all descended, each within its own class 

 or group, from common parents, and have all been 

 modified in the course of descent, that I should without 

 hesitation adopt this view, even if it were unsupported 

 by other facts or arguments. 





