Vestigial Structures 197 



What evidence is there in support of a conclusion 

 so momentous? Anatomically, there is, to use Sir 

 Richard Owen's phrase, an "all-pervading similitude 

 of structure" between the higher apes and man. Man 

 has indeed his distinctive features — his erect figure, 

 his big brain, his chin and regular teeth; but bone 

 for bone, muscle for muscle, nerve for nerve, there is 

 an all-pervading similitude. In some features man is 

 nearer one ape, in other features nearer another; 

 anatomically regarded, he is their distant cousin. 



Man is a walking museum of relics, vestiges of 

 mammalian and of remoter ancestry. Professor 

 Wiedersheim, in his Structure of Man, an Index to 

 his Past History (1895), discusses over fifty of these 

 relics; and everyone knows the little third eyelid in 

 the inner upper corner of the eye and the vestigial 

 muscles of the ear-trumpet which a few exceptional 

 individuals can activate, thus emulating the donkey. 

 If these vestigial structures are not relics of the past, 

 indices of history, like the unsounded letters in words, 

 what are they? We recall Darwin's fine sentence: 



"We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to 

 me, that man, with all his noble qualities, with sym- 

 pathy which feels for the most debased, with benevo- 

 lence which extends not only to other men, but to the 

 humblest living creature, with his God-like intellect, 

 which has penetrated into the movements and consti- 

 tution of the solar system — with all these exalted 

 powers — man still bears in his bodily frame the in- 

 delible stamp of his lowly origin" (the closing words 

 of The Descent of Man, 1871). 



