Origin of Species Variorum

not be .. reduced or rendered rudimentary at this early age. The calf, for instance, has inherited teeth, which never cut through the gums of the upper jaw, from an early progenitor having well-developed teeth; and we may believe, that the teeth in the mature animal were reduced, during successive generations, by disuse, or by the tongue and palate, or lips, having become better fitted by natural selection to browse without their aid; whereas in the calf, the teeth have been left untouched by selection or disuse, and on the principle of inheritance at corresponding ages have been inherited from a remote period to the present day. On the view of each organic being with all its separate parts having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable it is that organs bearing the plain stamp of inutility, such as the teeth in the embryonic calf or .. the shrivelled wings under the soldered wing-covers of many beetles, should .. so frequently occur. Nature may be said to have taken pains to reveal ... her scheme of modification, by means of rudimentary organs, embryological and homologous structures, but we wilfully will not understand the scheme.

I have now recapitulated the .. facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified, during a long course of descent, chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations. ↑ I cannot believe that a false theory would explain, as it seems to me that the theory of natural selection does explain, the several large classes of facts above specified. It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attrac- tion;