97 



VI. 



THE EVIDENCE FROM THE 

 TAILS, LIMBS, AND LUNGS OF ANIMALS, 



THE extreme respect occasionally paid by the scientific investigator 

 to the merest rudiments of parts and structures in animals and 

 plants, or to apparently insignificant phenomena in the physical 

 universe around us, naturally presents a source of wonder and 

 curiosity to the uninitiated mind. Circumstances which to the latter 

 appear " trifles light as air," may in truth afford " proofs of confirma- 

 tion " of the strongest character to the man of science. He has 

 learned from the successes of the past, the wisdom of seeing a 

 possible clue to some of the deepest of nature's problems in the 

 veriest byways and in the most unlikely paths into which his 

 researches may lead. The connection of one fact with another may 

 not at first sight be apparent ; and the isolated truth, may remain, 

 for years, a detached fragment of knowledge, possessing no evident 

 relationship with the arranged facts constituting the main body 

 of the science. But the patience of science must be equal to its 

 hope ; and the experience of the past has taught us many a lesson 

 regarding the real value of facts which seemingly were of little 

 import as year by year they remained disconnected and solitary 

 offshoots of the tree of knowledge. Thus one of the first pre- 

 cepts of scientific inquiry is that which inculcates the wisdom of 

 gathering up the fragments which deep research often leaves behind 

 after its " golden reaping " is past and over. For a second harvest 

 of veritable treasures may not unfrequently reward the patient 

 searcher in science- pastures, after the larger toil has apparently left 

 no corner of the field of inquiry unexplored. The application of 

 the foregoing commonplaceisms is nowhere better exemplified t^an 

 in many facts supporting evolution which have been elicited fiom 

 quarters of the most unlikely nature, and from natural-history details 

 which, in former years, might have been regarded as antagonistic 

 to the first principles of the development theory. One of the most 

 convincing circumstances of the general truth of evolution, indeed, 

 consists in the amount of spontaneous support which has flowed 

 towards this theory from all directions in biology ; whilst, in turn, 

 the theory of development has strengthened its own case by afford- 

 ing the only rational explanation of hitherto unexplained facts, 



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