454 
RUDIMENTAEY ORGANS. 
Chap. XIII. 
on natural history rudimentary organs are generally 
said to have been created for the sake of symmetry/’ 
or in order to complete the scheme of nature; ” but 
this seems to me no explanation, merely a re-statement 
of the fact. Would it be thought sufficient to say 
that because planets revolve in elliptic courses round 
the sun, satellites follow the same course round the 
planets, for the sake of symmetry, and to complete the 
scheme of nature ? An eminent physiologist accounts 
for the presence of rudimentary organs, by supposing 
that they serve to excrete matter in excess, or injurious 
to the system; but can we suppose that the minute 
papilla, which often represents the pistil in male flowers, 
and which is formed merely of cellular tissue, can thus 
act ? Can we suppose that the formation of rudimentary 
teeth, which are subsequently absorbed, can be of any 
service to the rapidly growing embryonic calf by the 
excretion of precious phosphate of lime ? When a man’s 
fingers have been amputated, imperfect nails sometimes 
appear on the stumps: I could as soon believe that these 
vestiges of nails have appeared, not from unknown laws 
of growth, but in order to excrete horny matter, as that 
the rudimentary nails on the fin of the manatee were 
formed for this purpose. 
On my view of descent with modification, the origin 
of rudimentary organs is simple. We have plenty of 
cases of rudimentary organs in our domestic produc¬ 
tions,—as the stump of a tail in tailless breeds,—the 
vestige of an ear in earless breeds,—^the reappearance 
of minute dangling horns in hornless breeds of cattle, 
more especially, according to Youatt, in young animals, 
—and the state of the whole flower in the cauliflower. 
We often see rudiments of various parts in monsters. 
But I doubt whether any of these cases throw light on 
the origin of rudimentary organs in a state of nature, 
