in PREPARATIONS FOR FUNCTION 179 



malia. But, even if we adopt the 

 assumption that this alternative is im- 

 possible or inconceivable, the second 

 assumption is certainly unjustifiable 

 that by the methods of ordinary genera- 

 tion rudimentary organs can never have 

 arisen except by actual use, nor can have 

 been atrophied except by subsequent 

 disuse. The whole course of organic 

 nature contradicts this assumption ab- 

 solutely. All organs pass through rudi- 

 mentary stages on their way to functional 

 activity. And if ordinary generation has 

 been made to do the work of forming 

 new species, the original germs in which 

 the process began must presumably have 

 passed through the same characteristic 

 steps. 



The facts of Palaeontology seem to 

 indicate that the vertebrate series began 

 with the Fish. Out of them, therefore, 

 on the Darwinian theory of Develop- 



