RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. 71 
true electric battery, but the discharges from this battery, 
even in the adults, are so feeble that they are of no prac- 
tical use so far as has been ascertained. It is well known 
that the electric eel and the torpedo use their batteries 
for stunning other animals. It is evident that, according 
to the theory of natural selection, these batteries could 
not have been preserved through their long functionless 
and useless stages, for that theory assumes that they were 
preserved because they were useful. 
It is asserted by evolutionists that wings as organs 
of flight have been independently evolved in at least 
four different lines—namely, in insects, the fossil ptero- 
dactyls, birds and bats. That an organ so highly special- 
ized as any one of these wings could be evolved seems 
improbable; while the evolution of the four different 
kinds, independently of each other, only increases the 
improbability, The difficulty, however, is to account for 
the evolution of any known kind of wing. In each case 
there exists the insuperable difficulty of preserving the 
organ through the rudimentary stages. The wings of 
an insect in the first generation of its evolution would 
be almost imperceptible and entirely useless for any pur- 
pose whatever, and so it would continue to be for a great 
number of generations. It is evident, therefore, that 
they could not have been preserved through their long 
rudimentary stage on the ground that they were useful, 
nor do we know of any theory that will account for their 
evolution. To say that they were evolved is easy, but 
to account for their evolution seems impossible. Fair- 
hurst refers to the delicate and complex organs of spiders. 
“The organs which spiders possess for secreting materia] 
and for making a web could not have been gradually 
evolved. The whole apparatus involved in making the 
web would be useless until sufficiently developed to make 
a web. The same is true,” he continues, “‘of the sting 
