40 THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF 



common occurrence, that almost every species pre- 

 sents one or more of them. The question, there- 

 fore, is — How are they to be accounted for ? Of 

 course the theory of descent with adaptive modi- 

 fication has a delightfully simple answer to supply, 

 viz., that when, from changed conditions of life, 

 an organ which was previously useful becomes 

 useless, natural selection, combined with disuse 

 and so-called economy of growth, will cause it 

 to dwindle till it becomes a rudiment. On the 

 other hand, the theory of special creation can 

 only maintain that these rudiments are formed 

 for the sake of adhering to an ideal type. Now, 

 here again the former theory is triumphant over 

 the latter ; for, without waiting to dispute the 

 wisdom of making dwarfed and useless struc- 

 tures merely for the whimsical motive assigned, 

 surely if so extraordinary a method is adopted 

 in so many cases, we should expect that in con-" 

 sistency it would be adopted in all cases. This 



