THE SCAFFOLDING LEFT IN THE BODY 123 



simply gorilla-foot — a case of the arrested develop- 

 ment of a character which apparently came along 

 the line of the direct Simian stock. So simple is 

 this method of interpreting the present by the past, 

 and so fruitful, that the anatomist has been able 

 in many instances to assume the r61e of prophet. 

 Adult man possesses no more than twelve pair of 

 ribs ; the prediction was hazarded by an older 

 Comparative Anatomy that in the embryonic state 

 he would be found with thirteen or fourteen. This 

 prophecy has since been verified. It was also pre- 

 dicted that at this early stage he would be found 

 to possess the insignificant remnant of a very small 

 bone in the wrist, the so-called os centrale^ which 

 must have existed in the adult condition of his 

 extremely remote ancestors. This prediction has 

 also been fulfilled, as Weismann aptly remarks, 

 *just as the planet Neptune was discovered after 

 its existence had been predicted from the dis- 

 turbances induced in the orbit of Uranus."^ 



But the enumeration becomes tedious. Though 

 we are only at the beginning of the list, sufficient 

 has been said to mark the interest of this part of 

 the subject, and the redundancy of the proof, 

 In the human body alone, there are at least 

 seventy of these vestigial structures. Take away 

 ^Weismann, Biological Memoirs^ p. 255. 



