188 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



I think that they have given undue weight to their 

 theory as to the origin of rudiments in order that 

 they might have an argument in favor of evolution. 



They have claimed in a very emphatic way that 

 their theory gives meaning to the existence of all 

 rudimentary organs, but, from the above facts as to 

 mammae, etc., I think that it fails. 



Such rudiments have been preserved through long 

 ages by the unknown laws of heredity, and we know 

 of no physical law by which to account for their 

 origin. 



The fact that the Monotremata, the lowest living 

 mammals, have no nipples, indicates, as Mr. Darwin 

 claims, that these appendages must have originated 

 in a later mammalian stock. Since all other mam- 

 mals have nipples, it would be necessary to assume 

 that they originated in animals as low in structure as 

 the marsupials. Mr. Darwin thinks that "the nip- 

 ples were first developed in the females of some very 

 early marsupial form, and were then, in accordance 

 with a common law of inheritance, transferred in a 

 functionally imperfect condition to the males." 



He is not, however, entirely satisfied with this view, 

 for he says: " Nevertheless, a suspicion has some- 

 times crossed my mind that long after the progenitors 

 of the whole mammalian class had ceased to be andro- 

 gynous, both sexes might have yielded milk, and thus 

 nourished their young, and, in the case of the marsu- 

 pials, that both sexes might have carried their young 

 in marsupial sacks." * 



It is evident that unless this last view is correct, 

 then the nipples of males have been rudiments from 

 their origin; and further, that if nipples can exist 

 through long ages without ever having been func- 

 tional, then other rudimentary organs may have 



always been such. 



* Ibid, p. 20. 



