THE SHARK'S TEETH 



throat. The latter are sometimes called gill-teeth, 

 because they are attached to the gill-arches, those 

 bony structures which support the organs of respira- 

 tion, and these branchial or pharyngeal teeth have 

 varied conformations which help in classification. 

 Their structure and arrangement recall those of the 

 buccal teeth, although they themselves do not seem 

 to have any particular purpose, either as regards the 

 taking of nourishment or in the respiratory act itself. 

 So far as teeth are concerned, there is every evidence 

 of a wealth of creative power whose importance 

 strangely exceeds that of the part — important certainly, 

 but without much variety — that they have been given 

 to play. 



For this is where we seem to be arriving at a con- 

 clusion. It is with another eye that I now regard that 

 huge shark's body stretched out before me on the 

 jetty, and its alarming armament of sharp-pointed 

 teeth. This mighty beast of prey is not simply a 

 slaughter-machine, created by an evil Nature for the 

 especial purpose of bloodshed, and equipped by her 

 with that one aim in view. The equipment has no 

 such purpose. The teeth were not made expressly to 

 tear, and the function did not create the organ. The 

 animal is content to use them when it possesses them, 

 just as we make use of a tool when it happens to be 

 at hand; but this tool was not specially brought into 

 existence to render that particular service. If we 

 think the contrary, as we commonly do, we are inter- 

 preting Nature far too much by our own standards. 

 Our limited capacities compel us to make tools for 

 definite purposes. It is not in us to imagine producing 

 indefinite apparatus of every kind and every description, 

 and then to choose from the storehouse that which 

 best fits each particular case. Such a creative fancy is 

 more than we can credit. But it is not beyond the 

 powers of Nature, which, in its fundamental action, 

 creates continually, fashions persistently, and never 

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