CHAPTER X 



DEGENERATION 



MR REID has something to say about Regres- 

 sion or " Reversion," generally called " Atavism," 

 i.e., the reappearance of ancestral characters 

 in descendants. Thus horses are occasionally 

 born with three toes on one or more feet, such 

 being the character of the extinct hipparion, its 

 supposed ancestor; but that writer has nothing 

 of importance on the very prevalent feature of 

 " Degeneration " or " Degradation." It is the 

 converse of Evolution, or, perhaps, we might 

 say, a contemporary phase of the process. For 

 when new organs are developed others degene- 

 rate, and either remain as " rudimentary organs " 

 or they disappear entirely. There is nothing 

 of a harmful or " injurious " character, to use 

 Darwin's term, about them ; it is simply Nature's 

 way of discarding a part which is no longer 

 required in the plant or animal under new con- 

 ditions and requirements of the being. Thus 

 all Cetaceans, as the whale, have rudimentary 

 bones of the legs, no longer wanted for walk- 

 ing on land or swimming in the sea. If these 



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