50 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



satalites revolve in elliptic courses round their planets, 

 for the sake of symmetry, because the planets thus 

 revolve around the sun? He also remarked, "It is 

 probable that disease has been the main agent in ren- 

 dering organs rudimentary, as in the case of the eyes 

 of animals inhabiting dark caverns, and of the wings 

 of birds inhabiting oceanic islands, which have seldom 

 been forced to fly, have ultimately lost the power of 



flying." 



SIMILARITY OF PARTS. In comparing one organism 

 with another, the organs, and the parts of the anato- 

 my, are always in the same order. In vertebrates, 

 the names of bones in one can be applied to the bones 

 in the same location in another. Illustration of the 

 principle can be made of the mouths of insects. How- 

 ever different in shape, they are all the same mouth, in 

 anatomical construction. Darwin has shown, how 

 hopeless it is to try to explain this similarity of plan, 

 by utility, or the doctrine of finality. But on the 

 theory, of the selection of successive slight modifica- 

 tions, each modification being profitable in some way 

 to the organism, the explanation is easy. The common 

 progenitor of insects, it is reasonable to suppose, had 

 an upper lip, mandibles, and two pairs of maxillae, 

 then natural selection would account for the great 

 number of variations from that primitive form. But 

 would special creation of each form, to be succeeded 

 by a new form in the next generation, be a reasonable 

 supposition ? 



"Comparative anatomy proves to the satisfaction of 

 every unprejudiced and critical student the significant 

 fact that the body of man, and that of the anthropoid 

 ape, are not only peculiarly similar, but they are prac- 

 tically one, and the same, in every important respect. 



