RUDIMENTARY ORGANS 193 



have survived in the most rudimentary form through 

 a long period of time. If functional upper incisors 

 could become useless and pass into the rudimentary 

 condition, how has it been possible for them to sur- 

 vive as useless rudiments for a length of time prob- 

 ably equal to that occupied in passing into the rudi- 

 mentary condition? If they could so greatly decrease 

 while in constant use, why have they not, after a 

 great lapse of time, totally disappeared by disuse? 

 If the former is true, then the latter, I think, ought to 

 have followed; but since it has not, it discredits a be- 

 lief in the former. 



The same objection holds good in many other cases. 

 The absence of legs from snakes is another example. 



It has commonly been claimed that the oldest 

 known fossil snakes occur in the Eocene, but Dr. 

 Romanes says that they are found in the Cretaceous. 

 Professor Huxley says: " No ophidian possesses any 

 trace of anterior extremities, but the Typhlopidse, the 

 Pythons, Boas and Tortrices, have rudiments of a 

 pelvis, and the latter snakes even possess very short 

 representatives of hind-limbs terminated by claws." * 



It is claimed by evolutionists that the reptilian 

 stock, from which snakes have descended, had four 

 functional legs, all of which have entirely disap- 

 peared except the rudiments named above. True 

 snakes are found, according to Dr. Romanes, in the 

 Cretaceous. At that time they had lost their legs so 

 that they had no rudiments, and yet we find rudi- 

 ments surviving in some through the immense period 

 of time that has since elapsed. 



The loss of functional parts, as a rule, implies a 

 feebleness in the force of heredity, while the persist- 

 ence of useless rudiments through long periods shows 

 13 *Anat. Vert., p. 207. 



