14 RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. 



developed and capable of action ! ' In order,' says 

 Mi. Darwin, 'to understand the existence of rudi- 

 mentary organs, we have only to suppose ' — let me 

 repeat the words — ' we have only to suppose that a 

 former progenitor possessed the parts in question in 

 a perfect state, and that under changed habits of life 

 they became greatly reduced, either from simple 

 disuse or through the natural selection of those 

 individuals which were least incumbered with a 

 superfluous part, aided by the other means previously 

 indicated.' 



Many such rudimentary structures Mr. Darwin 

 affirms to be neither beneficial nor injurious to the 

 animal in which they exist ; and the probability is, 

 according to him, that all organised beings, including 

 Man, possess many modifications of structure of no 

 service either now or formerly ! 



That an organ even of the least developed char- 

 acter found in any one animal is of no use in the 

 economy of that animal, but has been merely 

 reproduced in what is called a rudimentary form, 

 because the organ it represents had existed in^ a 

 more fully developed state in some alleged remote 

 ancestor, I do not hesitate to pronounce a mere gra- 

 tuitous assertion, the hasty assumption characteristic 

 of amateur anatomy and physiology. How rudi- 

 mentary soever an organ may be and how unim- 

 portant soever, comparatively speaking, and though 

 it does not perform the function proper to its 

 homologue as more fully developed in other 



