APPARENT EXCEPTIONS. 215 



on these old foundations. Among the many won- 

 ders of Nature there is nothing more wonderful 

 than this — the adaptability of the one Vertebrate 

 Type to the infinite variety of Life to which it 

 serves as an organ and a home. Its basement has 

 been so laid that every possible change or 

 addition of superstructure could be built upon it. 

 Creatures destined to live on the earth, or in 

 the earth, on the sea, or in the sea, under every 

 variety of condition of existence, have all been 

 made after that one pattern ; and each of them 

 with as close an adaptation to special func- 

 tion as if the pattern had been designed for 

 itself alone. It is true that there are particular 

 parts of it which are of no use to particular 

 animals. But there is no part of it which is 

 not of indispensable use to some member of 

 the group ; and there is one Supreme Form in 

 which all its elements receive their highest inter- 

 pretation and fulfilment. It is indeed wonderful 

 to think that the feeble and sprawling paddles of 

 a Newt, the ungainly flippers of a Seal, and the 

 long leathery wings of a Bat, have all the same 

 elements, bone for bone, with that human hand 



