i62 THE DARWINIAN THEORY 



No animal is at the top of the tree in all respects ; 

 man himself being primitive in retaining the full 

 number of toes, and degenerate as regards his ear 

 muscles. Care must also be taken not to speak of 

 an animal as degenerate merely because it possesses 

 organs less fully developed than allied animals. An 

 organ is not degenerate unless its present possessor 

 has it in a less perfect condition than its ancestors 

 had. A man is not degenerate in the matter of the 

 length of his neck as compared with a giraffe, nor as 

 compared with an elephant in respect of the size of 

 his front teeth, for neither elephant nor giraffe enters 

 into the pedigree of man. A man is, however, de- 

 generate, whoever his ancestors may have been, in 

 regard to his ear muscles, for he possesses them in 

 a rudimentary and functionless condition, which can 

 only be explained by descent from, some better 

 equipped progenitor. 



f The theory of Natural Selection does not say that 

 (the ideally best survive, but those most in harmony 

 (with their surroundings for the time being. If 

 these are of such a kind as to render certain organs 

 useless, such as the eyes of cave dwellers, their 

 possession is no longer an advantage, and the energy 

 previously devoted to their production can be better 

 utilised in other directions. Hence, though it is 

 quite true that on the whole there has been a pro- 

 gress towards greater specialisation, and that differ- 

 ences between extreme groups are greater now than 

 ever, yet there are many individual exceptions, and 

 natural selection actually requires that there should 

 be such exceptions. 



