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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 ecliinoderm, 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 , Tachydromus seoclineatus, Saurophis tetra - 
clactylus , Chamcesauria anguina } Pseudopus Pallasii. (These 
genera will be found illustrated in the English Cyclopedia , v. s. 
Zonuride.) Now these examples are isolated instances in as 
many distinct contemporary genera. The same phenomenon may 
be witnessed in hereditary but long antecedent forms. Thus, 
the Plagioloplrus 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 cow, 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 39 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 
