52 



advance in development. The loss of characters, under 

 nature, explains the appearance of characters under 

 domestication. The reduction of characters under 

 nature, explains the improvement of characters under 

 domestication. When the characters, lost under nature, 

 are regained under domestication, Darwin absurdly 

 argues that, because a certain number of characters 

 have appeared within a certain time, he need only 

 multiply such number of characters, by any given 

 time, to ascertain the number which is possible to 

 be acquired: Whereas, the fact is, the number of 

 characters possible to be acquired, within any species, 

 is not dependent upon any estimate of time, or of se- 

 lection, but upon the number of the characters which 

 have been lost by such species. 



Continuing his remarks, respecting these rudimen- 

 tary organs, he says : 



" Such organs are generally variable, as several nat- 

 uralists have observed ; for being useless, they are. not 

 regulated by Natural Selection ; and they are more or 

 less liable to reversion. The same rule certainly holds 

 good with parts which have become rudimentary under 

 domestication. We do not know through what steps 

 under nature, rudimentary organs have passed in being 

 reduced to their present condition; but we so inces- 

 santly see, in species of the same group, the finest 

 gradations between an organ, in a rudimentaiy and (in 

 a) perfect state, that we are led to believe that the pas- 

 sage must have been extremely gradual. It may be 

 doubted whether a change of structure, so abrupt as 

 the sudden loss of an organ, would ever be of service 

 to a species in a state of nature; for, the conditions to 

 which all organisms are closely adapted, usually change 



