212 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



triumphs ! Like the apostle Paul, Mr. Sandemaii 

 bestows more abundant comeliness upon our uncomely 

 parts. With great force and penetration he observes 1 

 that inherited rudiments have not been inherited as 

 ready-made rudiments ; they have been built up along 

 with the rest of the organism, taking their full share in 

 the reciprocities of organic growth. Ex hypothesi, what 

 is really (and not merely apparently and externally) 

 useless must long ago have disappeared under the fierce 

 strain of struggle for existence. Yes, very good. Nothing 

 is absolutely unfit. The most rudimentary part must 

 discharge some obscure physiological function in the 

 rhythm of life. But are we really to suppose that the 

 human body would be wrecked and ruined if (say) the 

 ilium ccBcum were somehow and safely evolved out of 

 existence as the surgeon on emergency may cut it 

 out ? If such a body arose, would it not be a better 

 body than ours, so far as hitherto evolved? Is it 

 unthinkable that nature should improve in this 

 fashion? Is not the whole living world relatively fit, 

 indeed, but also, in many important details, relatively 

 unfit, and is not an aborted organ very plainly marked 

 by nature as, in one most important sense, unfit ? 



Mr. Sandeman presumably implies the absolute 

 systematic perfection of the whole universe as well as 

 of each individual organism, and presumably affirms 

 this postulate on metaphysical grounds. Even without 

 repudiating it, we may urge that the idea is not 

 applicable off-hand to the world of nature. Men will 

 not readily surrender that dynamic view of nature, as a 

 great and incomplete process, which Darwin and other 

 evolutionary thinkers have taught us. The optimism 



1 This is a valuable corrective or supplement to Professor Ritchie's 

 criticism of Dr. Keich, Darwinism and Politics, pp. 124, 133. 



