INADEQUACY OF NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. CUT 



ness ? If survival of the fittest be the ascribed cause, then it lias 

 to be shown what the advantages achieved have been ; and, fur 

 ther, that those advantages have been sufficiently great to have 

 had effects on the maintenance of life. 



Besides tasting, there are two functions conducive to life, which 

 the tongue performs. It enables us to move about food during 

 mastication, and it enables us to make many of the articulations 

 constituting speech. But how does the extreme discriminative- 

 ness of the tongue-tip aid these functions ? The food is moved 

 about, not by the tongue-tip, but by the body of the tongue ; and 

 even were the tip largely employed in this process, it would still 

 have to be shown that its ability to distinguish between points 

 one-twenty-fourth of an inch apart, is of service to that end, 

 which cannot be shown. It may, indeed, be said that the tactual 

 perceptiveness of the tongue-tip serves for detection of foreign 

 bodies in the food, as plum-stones or as fish-bones. But such 

 extreme perceptiveness is needless for the purpose. A perceptive- 

 ness equal to that of the finger-ends would suffice. And further, 

 even were such extreme perceptiveness useful, it could not have 

 caused survival of individuals who possessed it in slightly higher 

 degrees than others. It needs but to observe a dog crunching 

 small bones, and swallowing with impunity the sharp-angled 

 pieces, to see that but a very small amount of mortality would be 

 prevented. 



But what about speech ? Well, neither here can there be 

 shown any advantage derived from this extreme perceptiveness. 

 For making the s and z, the tongue has to be partially applied to 

 a portion of the palate next the teeth. Not only, however, must 

 the contact be incomplete, but its place is indefinite may be 

 half an inch further back. To make the sh and zA, the contact has 

 to be made, not with the tip, but with the upper surface of the 

 tongue ; and must be an incomplete contact. Though, for making 

 the liquids, the tip of the tongue and the sides of the tongue 

 are used, yet the requisite is not any exact adjustment of the tip, 

 but an imperfect contact with the palate. For the th, the tip is 

 used along with the edges of the tongue ; but no perfect adjust 

 ment is required, either to the edges of the teeth, or to the junc 

 tion of the teeth with the palate, where the sound may equally 

 well be made. Though for the t and d complete contact of the 

 tip and edges of the tongue with the palate is required, yet the 

 place of contact is not definite, and the tip takes no more import 

 ant share in the action than the sides. Any one who observes 

 the movements of his tongue in speaking, will find that there 

 occur no cases in which the adjustments must have an exactness 

 corresponding to the extreme power of discrimination which the 

 tip possesses : for speech, this endowment is useless. Even were 



