THE SCAFFOLDING LEFT IN THE BODY. 83 



represent the ways of life of those whom he has met — 

 so the body of Man, emerging from its age-long jour- 

 ney through the animal kingdom, appears laden with 

 the spoils of its distant pilgrimage. These relics are 

 not mere curiosities ; they are as real as the clubs and 

 spears, the clothes and potter3^ Like them, they were 

 once a part of life's vicissitude ; they represent organs 

 which have been outgrown ; old forms of apparatus 

 long since exchanged for better, yet somehow not yet 

 destroyed by the hand of time. The physical body of 

 Man, so great is the number of these relics, is an old 

 curiosity shop, a museum of obsolete anatomies, dis- 

 carded tools, outgrown and aborted organs. All other 

 animals also contain among their useful organs a 

 proportion which are long past their work ; and so 

 significant are these rudiments of a former state of 

 things, that anatomists have often expressed their 

 willingness to stake the theory of Evolution upon their 

 presence alone. 



Prominent among these vestigial structures, as they 

 are called, are those which smack of the sea. If Em- 

 bryology is any guide to the past, nothing is more 

 certain than that the ancient progenitors of Man once 

 lived an aquatic life. At one time there was nothing 

 else in the world but water-life ; all the land animals 

 are late inventions. One reason why animals began 

 in the water is that it is easier to live in the water — 

 anatomically and physiologically cheaper — than to live 

 on the land. The denser element supports the body 

 better, demanding a less supply of muscle and bone ; 

 and the perpetual motion of the sea brings the food to 

 the animal, making it unnecessary for the animal to 

 move to the food. This and other correlated circum- 



