THE SCAFFOLDING LEFT IN THE BODY. 97 



covered after its existence had been predicted from 

 the disturbances induced in the orbit of Uranus." 1 



But the enumeration becomes tedious. Though we 

 are only at the beginning of the list, sufficient has 

 been said to mark the interest of this part of the sub- 

 ject, and the redundancy of the proof. In the human 

 body alone, there are at least seventy of these vesti- 

 gial structures. Take away the theory that Man has 

 evolved from a lower animal condition, and there is 

 no explanation whatever of any one of these phe- 

 nomena. With such facts before us, it is mocking 

 human intelligence to assure us that Man has not 

 some connection with the rest of the animal creation, 

 or that the processes of his development stand unre- 

 lated to the other ways of Nature. That Providence, 

 in making a new being, should deliberately have 

 inserted these eccentricities, without their having any 

 real connection with the things they so well imitate, 

 or any working relation to the rest of his body is, 

 with our present knowledge, simple irreverence. 



Were it the present object . to complete a proof of 

 the descent of Man, one might go on to select from 

 other departments of science, evidence not less strik- 

 ing than that from vestigial structures. From the 

 side of palaeontology it might be shown that Man 

 appears in the earth's crust like any other fossil, and 

 in the exact place where science would expect to find 

 him. When born, he is ushered into life like uny 

 other animal ; he is subject to the same diseases ; he 

 yields to the same treatment. When fully grown 

 there is almost nothing in his anatomy to distinguish 



1 Weismann, Biological Memoirs, p. 255. 



