51 



are not of any " special use to those animals," but are only due 

 to " inheritance." You may call this solemn trifling, and may 

 ask how these animals would do without them ? That is their 

 affair, not mine. I sha'nt tell you, and for a very good reason. 

 Let them tell you, if they like, or if they can. It follows, indeed, 

 that a better architect would have given these animals more 

 useful limbs, and that the works of Nature might be vastly 

 improved upon in my opinion, though I see that, even as it is, 

 a horse can gallop a mile in a minute, a monkey can climb from 

 bough to bough hi a most surprising manner, and a seal glide 

 'through the water in a marvellous way, the similarity of its 

 structure to that of others being no manner of hindrance to 

 it. You may, indeed, also reply that if the bones of the fore arm 

 of the ape were of no use to the ape they cannot be to us its 

 descendants. You may call this logic, but I have no place for 

 anything of the kind in my book. 



I may " believe " that the ancestor of the seal had not a 

 flipper, but a foot with five toes ; and I may " further venture 

 to believe " that the several bones in the limbs of the monkey, 

 the horse, and the bat, were of more use to their common 

 ancestor than they are to themselves. How can I help that ? 



I believe, I cannot deny, that you would be justified in saying 

 that if the ancestor of the seal had five toes, it may have been 

 either a man or an ape, or more probably, perhaps, a bear, 

 which, as I have elsewhere stated, had a natural tendency to 

 become " very like a whale." All you see is fish that comes to 

 ray net, as I have said before, more than once. 



I believe, yes I believe, that on my theory, among the 

 " swarms " of creatures " totally unlike any existing animal," it 

 is highly probable that the ancestor of the seal with five toes 

 " may " have played his pranks. 



I believe that my own ancestor's legs and arms, in that form, 

 were of 'more special use to him than "they are to me, but that 

 Nature has done the best she could for me with those limbs 

 under existing circumstances. So you see it's as broad as it's 

 long ; or, rather, as long as it's broad. 



I believe, accordingly, that the machinery of our bodies has 

 been deteriorating as to practical use ; and as to their being for 



