SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 119 



and there are good reasons — perfectly valid and convincing reasons, whicli 

 1 need not stay to trouble you with — which prove that this answers to the 

 third finger of my hand enormously enlarged. 



"And it looks at first as if there were only this one finger in the horse's 

 foot. But, if I turn the skeleton round, I find on each side a bone shaped 

 like a splint, broad at the upper and narrow at the lower end, one on each 

 side. And those bones are obviously and plainly and can be readily shown 

 to be the rudiments of the bones which I am now touching in my own hand 

 — the metacarpal bones of the second and of the fourth finger — so that we 

 may say that in the horse's fore-limb the radius and ulna are fused together, 

 that the middle part of the ulna is excessively narrow, and that the foot is 

 reduced to the single middle finger, with rudiments of the two other fingers, 

 one on each side of it. Those facts are represented in the diagram I now 

 show you of the recent horse. Here is the fore-limb (pointing to the dia- 

 gram), with the metacarpal bones and the little splint-bones, one on each 

 side. It sometimes happens that by way of a monstrosity you may have 

 an existing horse with one or other of these toes — that is provided with its 

 terminal joints. 



"Let me now point out to you what are the characteristics of the hind- 

 limb.- This (pointing to the diagram) is the shin-bone of the horse, and it 

 appears at first to constitute the whole of the leg. But there is a little 

 splint at this point which is the rudiment of the small bone of the leg — 

 what is called the fibula — and then there is connected with the lower end 

 of the tibia a little nodule which represents the lower end of the fibula, in 

 just the same way as that little nodule in the fore-limb represents the lower 

 end of the ulna. So that in the leg we have a modification of the same 

 character as that which exists in the fore-limb — the suppression of the 

 greater part of the small bone of the leg and the union of its lower end 

 with the tibia. So, again, we find the same thing if we turn to the remainder 

 of the leg. This (shpwing) is the heel of the horse, and here is the great 

 median toe, answering to the third toe in our own foot; and here we have 

 upon each side two little splint bones, just as in the fore-limb, which repre- 

 sent the rudiments of the second and the fourth toes — rudiments, that is to 

 say, of the metatarsal bones, the remaining bones having altogether van- 

 ished. Let me beg your attention to these peculiarities, because I shall 

 have to refer to them by-ahd-by. The result of this modification is, that 

 the fore and hind limbs are converted into long, solid, springy, elastic 

 levers, which are the great instruments of locomotion of the horse. 



"1 think that will suffice as a brief indication of some of the most im- 

 portant peculiarities and characteristics of the horse. If the hypothesis of 

 evolution is true, what ought to haj)pen when we investigate the history ot 

 this animal? We know that the mammalian type, as a whole — that mam- 

 malian animals — are characterized by the possession of a perfectly distinct 

 radius and ulna, two separate and distinct movable bones. We know, fur- 

 ther, that mammals in general possess five toes, often unequal, but still as 



