32 THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF 



has made the same structure subservient ; while 

 in the case of the eye He has endeavoured to 

 show his resources by the manifold structures which 

 He has to subserve the same function ? If so, it 

 appears to me a most unfortunate circumstance, 

 that throughout both the vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms, all cases which can be pointed to as 

 showing ingenious adaptation of the same typical 

 structure to the performance of widely different 

 functions, are cases which come within the limits 

 of the same natural group of plants and animals, 

 and therefore admit of being equally well ex- 

 plained by descent from a common ancestry; 

 while all cases of widely different structures per- 

 forming the same function are to be found in 

 different groups of plants or animals, and are 

 therefore suggestive of independent variations 

 arising in the different lines of hereditary 

 descent. 



To take a specific illustration. The octopus 



