_—" alk. = a ad hl et ce” eh” 
CHAPTER FIVE. 
Rudimentary Organs. 
Darwinism does not account for the fact that the 
various organs of animals while in process of evolution, 
must have through many generations, been in a rudimen- 
tary, incomplete state. Since it is a basic doctrine of 
evolution that useful variations were transmitted from 
parent to offspring because they were useful; and since 
furthermore, only the fully developed eye, the hearing 
ear, the actively functioning poison glands of insects and 
reptiles, etc., as well as the fully developed means of de- 
fense, were useful, it is not possible to understand how 
these organs in their rudimentary state (the half devel- 
oped eye, not yet capable of vision; the rudimentary 
spinneret of the spider, not yet capable of producing 
a thread, etc.) could serve any purpose which would make 
their transmission advantageous to the species. 
Conversely, the existence of rudimentary organs in 
living species (the rudimentary spurs of female birds, 
the rudimentary legs of skeleton of serpents) proves that 
organs do not change by use or disuse, otherwise they 
would long ago have disappeared. 
With regard to this difficulty, Darwin says: “If it 
could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed 
which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, 
successive, slight modifications, my theory would abso- 
lutely break down. But I can find no such case.” Let 
us see. 
A difficult organ to account for is the electric organ 
of the skates. In these fishes it has been shown to be a 
