180 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



at its base, was evolved in a single generation? If it 

 was evolved gradually, what was its condition at the 

 end of the first, the tenth, or the hundredth genera- 

 tion? How long would it take for it to perform the 

 office of a sting? What purpose could it serve, and 

 how could it survive through its long rudimentary 

 period? 



If the mandibles of spiders through which the 

 poison is forced existed before the formation of the 

 gland that produces the poison, how could the mand- 

 ibles become perforated for the passage of the poison? 

 Were there not millions of chances to one that the 

 poison would find an exit through some neighboring 

 part instead of through the mandible. In all the 

 cases of a gland of poison with a sting and mandible, 

 how did it happen that the gland and the instrument 

 for introducing the poison came together? Without 

 the sting the poison is useless. The production of 

 teeth does not insure the existence of a sac of poison 

 at their base, as is shown by the harmless snakes. 



It is evident, in the case of snakes, that the poison- 

 ous have been evolved from the harmless snakes if 

 the doctrine of evolution is true. This being true, 

 what were the probabilities that a gland of poison 

 would be developed, and this in animals that do not 

 seem to need it, as is shown by the great number of 

 harmless snakes? What were the probabilities that 

 the gland would be developed at the root of the fang, 

 where alone it could be made effective, and that it 

 would be developed at no other place in the whole 

 body? What were the probabilities that the fangs 

 would become so modified as to form a tube for the 

 passage of the poison? Did the formation of a poison 

 gland at the base of a tooth insure an exit through 

 the tooth for the poison? It seems evident that the 

 poison fang of snakes, if evolution is true, was pro- 



