142 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 

 INEXPLICABLE ON THE ORDINARY VIEW OF CREATION. 



How inexplicable are the cases of serial 

 homologies on the ordinary view of creation ! 

 Why should the brain be inclosed in a box composed of 

 such numerous and such extraordinarily shaped pieces of 

 bone, apparently representing vertebrae ? As Owen has re- 

 marked, the benefit derived from the yielding of the sepa- 

 rate pieces in the act of parturition by mammals will by 

 no means explain the same construction in the skulls of 

 birds and reptiles. Why should similar bones have been 

 created to form the wing and the leg of a bat, used as 

 they are for such totally different purposes, namely, fly- 

 ing and walking ? Why should one crustacean, which 

 has an extremely complex mouth formed of many parts, 

 consequently always have fewer legs ; or conversely, those 

 with many legs have simpler mouths ? Why should the 

 sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils, in each flower, though 

 fitted for such distinct purposes, be all constructed on the 

 same pattern ? 



On the theory of natural selection, we can, to a cer- 

 tain extent, answer these questions. We need not here 

 consider how the bodies of some animals first became di- 

 vided into a series of segments, or how they became di- 

 vided into right and left sides, with corresponding organs, 

 for such questions are almost beyond investigation. It is, 

 however, probable that some serial structures are the re- 

 sult of cells multiplying by division, entailing the multi- 

 plication of the parts developed from such cells. It must 

 suffice for our purpose to bear in mind that an indefinite 

 repetition of the same part or organ is the common char- 

 acteristic, as Owen has remarked, of all low or little spe- 

 cialized forms ; therefore the unknown progenitor of the 

 Vertebrata probably possessed many vertebrae ; the un- 



