184 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



they have become rudimentary? In all mammals the 

 mother is the natural provider for the young, which, 

 as a rule, are born in a very helpless condition, and 

 require to be carefully and promptly supplied with 

 milk in order that they may survive. 



In what conceivable way could the milk glands 

 have been evolved and such radical changes have 

 taken place in the life and instincts as those involved 

 in changing from the reptilian to the mammalian 

 type? 



It is presumed that the mammae were gradually 

 evolved after many generations of fruitless efforts on 

 the part of the young. What could have induced the 

 young to persist in nursing, in the absence of organs 

 to furnish nourishment? Are we to presume, with 

 Prof. Huxley, that the mammae have been evolved 

 from sebaceous glands? There are no facts connected 

 with the reptiles, from which it is claimed mammals 

 were evolved, to justify this extraordinary conclu- 

 sion. 



The evolution of milk-glands I regard as an impos- 

 sibility, even in the females. But what shall we say 

 of the probability of their appearing in the males? 

 We are to assume that the young carried on the same 

 process with regard to both sexes at the same time, 

 and that the result was the development of functional 

 milk-glands in both — and, what is more strange, they 

 were in identical positions. According to this theory, 

 these glands in the two sexes were separately evolved. 

 If this were possible, the great difficulty of the pro- 

 cess would show the extreme importance of the result 

 to the species, and, this being true, it is not probable 

 that these organs could have become universally rudi- 

 mentary in males while they remained functional in 

 females. 



I regard it as quite certain that these rudimentary 



