ARISTOTLE. 



55 



d. Adaptive Structures 7tot Produced by Survivals 



of the Fittest. 



What, then, hinders but that the parts in Nature 

 may also thus arise (namely, according to law). 

 For instance, that the teeth should arise from 

 necessity, the front teeth sharp and adapted to 

 divide the food, the grinders broad and adapted to 

 breaking the food into pieces. 



(Another explanation may be offered.) Yet, it 

 may be said that they were not made for this pur- 

 pose {i.e, for this adaptation), but that this (adapta- 

 tive) purposive arrangement came about by chance; 

 and the same reasoning is applied to other parts of 

 the body in which existence for some purpose is 

 apparent. And it is argtied that where all tilings 

 happened as if they were made for some purpose, 

 being aptly (adaptively) ti7iited by chance, these were 

 preserved, but such as were not aptly (adaptive I)') 

 made, these were lost a7id still perish, according to 

 what Empedocles says concerning the bull species 

 with human heads. This, therefore, and similar 

 reasoning, may lead some to doubt on this 

 subject. 



It' is, ho.wever, impossible that these (adaptive) 

 parts should subsist (arise) in this manner; for these 

 parts, and everything which is produced in Nature, 

 are either always, or, for the most part, thus (/>. 

 adaptively) produced; and this is not the case 

 with anything which is produced by fortune or 



