400 DESIGN IN NATURE 



It is quite true that the more simple plants and animals appeared on the earth before the more complex ones, 

 and that the more complicated structures and organs in both have comparatively simple beginnings. This fact, 

 however, does not prove the doctrine of evolution. If it proves anything it proves that design, law, and order 

 prevail in the universe ; that like laws obtain in the inorganic and organic kingdoms ; that the simpler forms and 

 combinations lend themselves to the construction of the more complex forms in an ascending series ; and that there 

 is continuity of plan in the great races of plants and animals. 



Every one conversant with the subject will readily admit that traces of the more simple plants and animals 

 constantly reappear in the higher plants and animals, and this holds true of the several systems and of the organs 

 comprising them. To take an example. The plant breathes by the stomata of its leaves as an animal breathes 

 by its lungs ; the plant circulates its nutritious juices pretty much as an animal circulates its blood ; the spores of 

 certain plants move freely about like many animals ; and certain animals (sponges, for example), are fixed, as happens 

 in the majority of plants. In all these cases there is a common plan and common arrangements. There is, how- 

 ever, no proof that the animal is derived from the plant, or that community of structure and function in the plant 

 and animal are due to original identity. In like manner the more complex plants and animals, during their develop- 

 ment, pass through stages met with in the adult condition of the more simple. In this case, there is community 

 of plan, and also continuity of substance and function, as is well seen in the development of the human embryo 

 and foetus ; which, as stated, have been likened at one time to a fish, at another to an amphibian, at a third to a 

 reptile, and at a fourth to a bird. The conditions of life in utero necessitate these resemblances. The foetus cannot 

 breathe air by its lungs or digest food by its ahmentary canal. Special provisions have to be made, and these 

 provisions furnish eloquent testimony of design, as they show that the end was seen from the beginning ; the uterine 

 changes being necessary when the completed animal is taken into account. 



The development of the mammal bespeaks a general plan or scheme of a progressive character according to 

 types ; the higher types including the lower, with which they are in harmony from the beginning. The fact that 

 the mammal during its development gradually dispenses with the arrangements peculiar to the fish, amphibian, 

 reptile, and bird, and advances to something higher, shows that while it has certain things in common with the 

 lower types, it has also other things which they do not individually, or in the aggregate, possess, and which distin- 

 guish it from everything lower in the scale of being. According to this view, the organic kingdom consists of a 

 number of types arranged in an ascending series, each having a hmited range ; the lower approaching towards but 

 not actually merging into the higher, which, as indicated, has peculiarities of its own not found in any of the lower 

 types. This explains the cropping up of vestiges, remnants, or rudiments of lower types in higher types in 

 combination with excellences not found in the lower types, and to which they can never attain. 



It is generally maintained that the so-called vestiges, remnants, or rudiments afford proofs of a common origin 

 and of evolution from a pristine stock of undifferentiated protoplasm. It is further averred that the remnants 

 deteriorate from inactivity and disuse, as they are not required in the higher animals. The facts, carefully considered, 

 point rather to the conclusion that all plants and animals are formed on a general plan which repeats itself ; that 

 the simpler types precede the more complex ; that portions of the simpler types reappear in the higher, and that 

 the structures in both the lower and higher types are largely due to a repetition of parts by division, by budding, 

 by branching, by infolding, by outfolding, by invagination, by evagination, by doubhng, by crumphng, &c. It is 

 quite true that if a part is not exercised, or ceases to be used, it deteriorates and tends to disappear ; but the presence 

 of vestiges, or so-called rudiments, is not fully explained either by evolution, heredity, or disuse. To take examples. 

 The blood-vessels connected with the heart in the mammalian foetus are simple and symmetrical, and resemble in 

 their general arrangement that which obtains in the gills of the fish ; in other words they consist of five symmetrical 

 sets of loops or arches on either side ; each set being capable of carrying blood. A time, however, arrives when 

 the vessels, especially on one side, largely disappear, not, be it noted, from disuse, but because of the exigencies 

 of design. What was symmetrical becomes unsymmetrical, and we have, as a consequence, the twisted aorta and 

 pulmonary artery with their respective ramifications. Here we have a case of suppression of parts and change of 

 form, not because of disuse, but because of general plan. The appendix vermiformis, another vestige, represents 

 a considerable cul-de-sac in the intestine of certain of the lower animals, and is functionally active. In man it 

 is relatively a very small, narrow cul-de-sac with next to no function. Here again there is dwarfing not because of 

 disuse but because of general plan. If it had been a mere case of dwindling and deterioration occasioned by disuse, 

 the structure would long ago have entirely disappeared. No change, however, has occurred in it for thousands of 

 years ; a circumstance which goes far to prove the existence and persistence of type, as apart from evolution. 

 Similar remarks may be made of the presence of hair on the human skin. This is largely confined to particular 

 regions, and is scanty as compared with that found in the integuments of the lower animals. The persistence of hair 

 in diminished quantity and in particular localities in man is, however, no proof either of unbroken descent or 



