SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE 8i 



useless organs in members of higher species. The 

 vermiform appendix of our own bodies affords a criti- 

 cal instance, one that obtrudes itself upon our attention 

 with painful insistence in the disease known as appen- 

 dicitis. This and other organs of the same apparently 

 useless nature bear the appearance of being survivals 

 of a previous stage of evolution, for they are found in 

 lower species and there discharge useful functions. 

 Mr. A. R. Wallace gives interesting examples.^ He 

 says, *'A11 the higher animals present rudiments of 

 organs which, though useless to them, are useful in 

 some allied group, and are beheved to have descended 

 from a common ancester in which they were useful." ^ 

 Some of these rudiments appear only in exceptional 

 individuals. Thus certain persons carry a projecting 

 point on the outer fold of the ear, corresponding faintly 

 to the pointed ear of numerous species of lower ani- 

 mals — an earmark of ancestry. 



6. We come next to the teaching of geology and 

 paleontology as to the comparative antiquity of species, 

 and as to the time-order of their origin. This teaching 

 is derived from the distribution of ancient fossils, found 

 in various strata of the earth's crust, the relative 

 antiquity of which has been estimated by the methods 

 of geological science. This testimony of the rocks is, 

 of course, far from complete. Many organisms are 

 too soft and jelly-like to be preserved in this manner, 

 unless petrified — a comparatively rare event. Then 

 in order that an organism should be preserved after 



1 Darwinism, ch. xv. 2 Page 448. 



7 



