121 



VII. 



THE EVIDENCE FURNISHED BY THE SCIENCE 

 OF LIKENESSES. 



IN the preceding chapter it was shown, incidentally to the subject of 

 limbs and their nature, that science makes it a duty of the highest 

 importance to discover and trace the resemblances which frequently 

 exist between apparently diverse and unlike structures. Such like- 

 nesses were illustrated by a reference to the similarity which could 

 readily be found to exist between such outwardly unlike organs as 

 the arm of man, the wing of the bird, the fore-leg of the horse, the 

 paddle of the whale or dolphin, and the wing of the bat. In a 

 minor degree also, but still provable from the same standpoint, the 

 paired fins of fishes could be shown to agree with the limbs of other 

 animals to which they present no obvious affinities. Beneath the 

 diverse appearances of limbs, one and the same type thus appears to 

 exist. An examination of the hard parts, or skeletons, of these 

 appendages, readily reveals the likeness which adaptation to diverse 

 conditions of life has produced. In connection with the limb- 

 likenesses in question, certain important considerations connected 

 with the meaning of such similarities were briefly noted. How, or 

 why, a common type or plan should be discernible beneath well-nigh 

 endless variety of outward form and function, was a question which 

 naturally obtruded itself upon the notice of the scientific observer. 

 Such a query, it was remarked, presented, like so many other matters 

 of scientific interest, but two methods of solution. In the one case 

 the reply might take the form of the unquestioning and tacit 

 assumption that such things were so formed from the beginning 

 according to some ideal plan, or type for the construction of which 

 type, however, no reason can be assigned. " Conformity to a type " 

 is an expression which merely restates what everybody admits, 

 and what the examination of the limbs, on any hypothesis, 

 plainly shows. To say that things "were created so" presents 

 a complete parallel to the famous " woman's reason " in the " Two 

 Gentlemen of Verona ;" or to Tom Brown's equally renowned 

 explanation of the dislike to Dr. Fell a parody, by the way, on 

 Martial 



Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare ; 



Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te. 



