1 86 CLUES AND SUGGESTIONS CHAP. 



that if the creature possessing them has 

 acquired them through no other process 

 than ordinary descent from parents which 

 were terrestrial beasts, then we are 

 attributing to ordinary generation every- 

 thing which is intelligible to us as a truly 

 creative power. The stages through 

 which such an enormous metamorphosis 

 could only have been conducted, if they 

 were sudden and rapid, would have been 

 visibly a creative work ; and if they 

 were slow and gradual they must have 

 followed certain lines of growth as 

 steadily, as surely, and with as much 

 prevision, as we can conceive in any 

 intellectual purpose of our own. No- 

 thing, therefore, is gained by those who 

 dislike the idea of rudimentary organs 

 being regarded as provisions for a future 

 in some one original Plan, when they try 

 to escape from that idea by supposing 

 that this rudimentary condition can be 



