RUDIMENTARY ORGANS 187 



and some male marsupials have rudiments of a marsu- 

 pial sack." * These facts, according to the supposed 

 laws of embryology, would indicate hermaphrodite or 

 androgynous ancestors among the mammals. He says, 

 however, that such an ancestry " seems improbable in 

 the highest degree," for the reason that if true, then, 

 hermaphrodite vertebrates ought still to be found, 

 especially among fishes and amphibians. He says, 

 "To account, however, for male mammals possessing 

 rudiments of the accessory female organs, and for 

 female mammals possessing rudiments of the mascu- 

 culine organs, we need not suppose that their early 

 progenitors were still androgynous after they had as- 

 sumed their chief mammalian characters. It is quite 

 possible that as the one sex gradually acquired the 

 accessory organs proper to it, some of the successive 

 steps or modifications were transmitted to the oppo- 

 site sex." 



Here, then, we find rudimentary organs of various 

 kinds, which Mr. Darwin admits were never func- 

 tional, but were transmitted as rudiments from one 

 sex to the other. There are many such differences 

 between the sexes. 



These facts are opposed to the general claim that 

 rudimentary organs are the remains of functional 

 organs. If this large class of rudimentary organs 

 cannot be accounted for on the theory that they 

 were formerly functional organs, then it is quite pos- 

 sible that the theory of evolutionists as to rudimen- 

 tary parts may not be correct. 



They rely much on rudimentary organs as an argu- 

 ment, but unless they can show that they have all 

 been produced by variation and natural selection, 

 which Mr. Darwin admits cannot be done in the case 

 of many sexual differences, then their argument is 

 greatly weakened. 



* Vol. 1, p. 199. 



