EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 8 1 



of Species" (1859), made it current intellectual coin. By 

 his work and by that of Spencer, Wallace, Haeckel, and 

 many others, the doctrine of descent, the general fact of 

 evolution, has been established, and is now all but universally 

 recognised. 



The chief arguments which Darwin and others have 

 elaborated in support of the doctrine of descent, according 

 to which organisms have been naturally evolved from simpler 

 forms of life, may be ranked under three heads — (a) struc- 

 tural, (b) physiological, (c) historical. 



Evidences of evolution. — (a) Structural. — Some say that 

 there are over a million living animals of different species. 

 In any case, there are many myriads. These species are 

 linked together by varieties which make strict severance 

 often impossible (Fig. 32); they can be rationally arranged 

 in genera, orders, families, and classes, between which 

 there are not a few remarkable connecting links ; there is 

 a gradual increase of complexity from the Protozoa upwards 

 along various lines of organisation ; it is possible to rank 

 them all on a hypothetical genealogical tree (Fig. 18). 

 A little practical experience makes one feel that the facts of 

 classification favour the idea of common descent. 



Throughout vast series of animals we find in different 

 guise essentially the same parts twisted into most diverse 

 forms for different uses, but yet referable to the same 

 fundamental type. It is difficult to understand this "ad- 

 herence to type," this "homology" of organs, except on 

 the theory of natural relationship. 



There are many rudimentary organs in animals, especially 

 in the higher animals, which remain very slightly developed, 

 and which often disappear without having served any 

 apparent purpose. Such are the " gill-slits " or " visceral- 

 clefts " in Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, the teeth of young 

 whalebone whales, the pineal body (a rudimentary eye) in 

 Vertebrates. Only on the theory that they are vestiges of 

 structures which were of use in ancestors are these rudi- 

 ments intelligible. They are relics of past history, com- 

 parable, as Darwin said, to the unpronounced letters in 

 many words. 



(b) Physiological. — Observation shows that animals are 

 to some extent plastic. In natural conditions they vary in 

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