269 
tion. Much stress is laid by Professor Haeckel and other 
advanced evolutionists on the fact that certain animals possess 
what are called rudimentary organs^ the presence of which, 
they say, prove the descent of the creature possessing them 
from other animals who had them as perfect organs. 
When we ask, as we have a right, by what means the fully- 
developed organ became degraded, and so ultimately rudi- 
mentary, we are told, in the words of Mr. Darwin, That 
disuse has been the main agent in rendering organs rudimen- 
tary. It would at first lead by slow steps to the more and 
more complete reduction of a part, until at last it became 
rudimentary."’^ 
Let us test this assertion by common sense. The boa- 
constrictor has rudimentary legs in the form of spurs, which 
are used by the creature when it is hanging on a bough of a 
tree watching for its prey. 
Again. The rudimentary structure is, we are told, the 
result of the disuse of the fully-developed limb. But what 
could have induced the possessor of the perfectly-formed legs 
to have commenced the disuse of the organs ? Surely it would 
have been more conducive to the comfort and welfare of the 
creature to have continued the use of the necessary organs. 
But the hypothesis of evolution requires that the limbs should 
have been disused in order that the spurs may be accounted 
for, and so the imagination of the evolutionist pictures a time 
when this supposed action took place, and then he asserts that 
it was certainly done. 
Let us take another example. The Greenland whale has 
two bones in its hinder part, and we are told that these are 
rudimentary legs. In this case we are required to believe 
that the progenitors of the modern whale were four-legged 
creatures. If so, what could have induced the creatures to 
have discontinued the use of these necessary organs ? and 
where are the links which are needed to unite the animals 
with no hind limbs with those which had two fully- developed? 
We might reasonably suppose that when these imaginary 
creatures began the disuse of their hind legs, the toes would 
have first been degraded. For either in walking or swim- 
ming the toes are chiefly concerned, and so a race wonld 
ultimately have been formed with toeless limbs. Hot a single 
relic of such a race has been found. This is most unfortunate 
for the evolutionist. 
Once more. The horses of the present day have been, we 
are told, evolved ont of an ancient race of three-toed animals, 
which, of course, used all three when standing or walking. 
But, somehow or other, all these three-toed animals took it 
