298 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



That it serves no purpose as a tail, may be readily admitted, 

 but that it serves no purpose whatever, is quite another mat- 

 ter. As a matter of fact, it serves for the attachment of sev- 

 eral small muscles, whose functioning would be impossible in 

 the absence of this bone. Darwin himself concedes this; for 

 he confesses that the four vertebrae of the coccyx ''are fur- 

 nished with some small muscles." {Ibidem.) We may, there- 

 fore, admit the homology between the human coccyx and the 

 tails of other vertebrates, without being forced to regard the 

 latter as a useless vestigial organ. It may be objected that 

 the attachment of these muscles might have been pro- 

 vided for in a manner more in harmony with our 

 ideas of symmetry. To this we reply that Helmholtz 

 criticized the human eye for similar reasons, when he said that 

 he would remand to his workshop for correction an optical 

 instrument so flawed with defects as the human eye. But, 

 after all, it was by the use of these selfsame imperfect eyes 

 that Helmholtz was enabled to detect the flaws of which he 

 complained. When man shall have fully fathomed the diffi- 

 culties and obstructions with which organic morphogeny has 

 to contend in performing its wonderful work, and shall have 

 arrived at an elementary knowledge of the general laws of 

 morphogenetic mechanics, he will be more inclined to admire 

 than to criticize. It is a mistake to imagine that the finite 

 works of the Creator must be perfect from every viewpoint. 

 It suffices that they are perfect with respect to the particular 

 purpose which they serve, and this purpose must not be nar- 

 rowly estimated from the standpoint of the created work itself, 

 but from that of its position in the universal scheme of crea- 

 tion. All such partial views as the Helmholtzian one are 

 false views. 



Another consideration which Darwin and his partisans have 

 failed to take into account is the possibility of an ontogenetic, 

 as well as a phylogenetic, explanation of rudimentary organs. 

 That is to say, rudimentary organs might, so far as a priori 

 reasons are concerned, be the now useless vestiges of organs 



