A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTION:' 109 



arising out of "the mass of animal life to be dealt with," is a suppo- 

 sition that could only occur to a mind altogether unacquainted with 

 anatomical science. The marvel always is, not the accidental simi- 

 larity of organs, due to the exigencies of their performing similar 

 functions, but the adaptation of anatomically homologous organs 

 to the performance of widely different functions. To take only one 

 instance by way of illustration. Where is the " necessity " that no 

 one among the many species of bats should not have the wing formed 

 in any other way than by the highly peculiar and distinctive modifica- 

 tion of the hand ? Or where is the " necessity " that all the still 

 greater number of species of birds should have their wings formed by 

 another highly peculiar and equally distinctive modification of the 

 arm ? Both structures serve equally well for flight ; as, indeed, do 

 the wings of insects and did the wings of the pterodactyl. So far, 

 then, as the exigencies arising out of " the mass of animal life to be 

 dealt with " are concerned, there is no reason why these four types 

 of wings should not occur indiscriminately among the four classes of 

 animals in question — and this even if we follow our author in confining 

 the possibilities of creative invention to the anatomical structures of 

 which we are cognizant. This, of course, is but a general refutation. 

 The absurdity of the argument from " necessity " becomes the more 

 apparent the more numerous and more minute the homologies of struc- 

 ture are found to be within the limits of the same type, without ever 

 transgressing on the equally numerous and minute homologies of any 

 other type. But the fact that homologies never thus commingle — 

 that no one of a vast congeries of organs characteristic of one group 

 of organisms ever appears in any other group of organisms — this fact 

 is of such overwhelming force as evidence of genetic descent, that its 

 supposed failure of application in one solitary instance was, as Sir 

 Charles Lyell wisely observed, to his mind the strongest argument 

 against evolution with which he had met. This solitary case of fail- 

 ure had reference to the eye of a mollusk (the cuttle-fish), which was 

 alleged to be anatomically similar to the eye of a true fish. The alle- 

 gation proved to be wholly false ; but, so far as any " necessity " aris- 

 ing from the difficulty of inventing new forms is concerned, there is 

 no reason why the allegation should not have been true. 



Our reviewer next treats of the argument from embryology, and 

 in doing so his ideas present that same crudity of cast which gives to 

 his whole essay its grotesque character. He says : " Certainly these 

 remarks are exceedingly curious, and even in a sense imposing. . . . 

 But these resemblances, be they never so close, infer no real connection 

 between the objects thus heterogeneously associated. It is not pre- 

 tended that the objects compared together are ever entirely alike — 

 that the unborn young of the higher animal is, at any stage of its 

 development, identical with any of the lower animals, but only that 

 some of the features of the one are like the analogous features of the 



