12 



witness to the relative character of design in structure revealed 

 by their presence. Hence, as will be seen more fully hereafter, 

 it cannot be too strongly borne in mind — indeed it may be laid 

 down as a universal law — that no structure can be called abso- 

 lutely perfect, or than which we cannot conceive a better. So 

 that from such an elaborate organ as the eye to a mere pigment 

 sport of an echinoderm, or from the well-developed legs of the 

 majority of lizards to the rudimentary and useless representa- 

 tive of legs in certain snake-like genera, organs of varying 

 degrees of character can be found which impress us propor- 

 tionately with corresponding degrees of evidence to design. The 

 word " design cannot convey more than the structures them- 

 selves ; and as structures apparently adapted for certain ends in 

 some organism are found less and less so in kindred forms, so 

 design, as applied to the former, from being very pronounced, 

 becomes, as it were, less and less so until it disappears altogether. 

 Thus, if the following genera be compared, it will be seen how 

 a gradual degeneration of the limbs indicates, so to say, a cor- 

 responding dying out of purpose, till at last nothing remains but 

 rudiments of legs under the skin, in which the purpose of loco- 

 motion is finally gone, and design has disappeared altogether : 

 Zonurus griseus^ Tachyclromus sexlineatus, Saurophis tetra- 

 dactylus, Chamcesauria anguina, Pseudopiis Pallasii. (These 

 genera will be found illustrated in the English Ci/clopcediaj v. s. 

 Zonuridce.) Now these examples are isolated instances in as 

 man}^ distinct contemporary genera. The same phenomenon may 

 be witnessed in hereditary but long antecedent forms. Thus, 

 the Plagiolophus had three well-developed toes, the central 

 one being slightly the larger. In the Hipparion of a later 

 epoch the two lateral ones became much smaller, and 

 nearly resemble the pair of rudimentary toes of a co\v, while 

 the central toe and its supporting bones are proportionally 

 larger. In the present epoch we have its descendant, the horse, 

 with only one toe (the hoof), the two rudimentary ones having 

 disappeared altogether, nothing but the splint-bones remain- 

 ing. Nature is replete with such illustrations of rudiments, 

 and the tertiary strata at least abound with evidence of "gene- 

 ralized types and " transitional forms. Hence we see that 

 while, on the one hand, innumerable examples can be found, such 

 as teleologists have hitherto seized upon for their illustrations, 

 and which to a believer in a personal creating God evince un- 

 mistakable and admirable design ; on the other hand, a large class 

 of structures can be pointed out which either scarcely admit of 

 the word at all, or else seem to militate against it altogether. 



The explanation, then, hitherto offered by natural theologians 

 of the existence of rudimentary organs is quite inadequate, not 



