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laws of creation ? Do they not teach us something of the system of 
nature ? If each species has been created independently and without 
any necessary relations with pre-existing species, what do these 
rudiments, these apparent imperfections, mean? There must be 
a cause for them ; they must be the necessary results of some great 
natural law. Now, if, as it has been endeavoured to be shown, the 
great law which has regulated the peopling of the earth with animal 
and vegetable life is, that every change shall be gradual; that no new 
creature shall be formed widely differing from anything before existing; 
that in this, as in everything else in nature, there shall be gradation 
and harmony—then these rudimentary organs are necessary, and are 
an essential part of the system of nature. Ere the higher vertebrata 
were formed, for instance, many steps were required, and many 
organs had to undergo modifications from the rudimental condition 
in which only they had as yet existed. . . . Limbs first concealed 
beneath the skin and then weakly protruding from it were the neces 
sary gradations before others should be formed fully adapted for 
locomotion.”—(Contributions. fip. 23, 24.) 
In republishing this Essay in 1870, he adds a note, in 
which he asserts that this view is no longer tenable, 
because it is inconsistent with the principles of Natural 
Selection. He says :— 
“The theory of Natural Selection has now taught us that these are 
not the steps by which limbs have been formed, and that most 
rudimentary organs have been produced by abortion owing to disease 
(?disuse), as explained by Mr. Darwin.”—(Contributions. p. 24—note.) 
Mr. Lydekker speaks to the same effect:— 
“ With the advent of the doctrine of evolution, and the more 
careful investigations into the structure of animals which had by that 
time taken place, a total change of view as to the real nature and 
import of these so-called rudimental structures at once ensued. Thus 
it was soon found (not by conjecture, but from actual circumstantial 
evidence) that in place of being the beginnings of structures which 
eventually became functional, these rudiments were really the rem 
nants of structures which had once been functional, but had now 
become useless. This change of view necessitates, therefore, that 
the term ‘rudiment’ in zoology must at least very generally be used 
in precisely the opposite sense to the one in which it is employed in 
ordinary parlance.”—{Phases of Animol Life, Past and Present. 
A 237.)