Picture - Cosmic Polymath

THE TRAVELLING ORGANS OF ANIMALS 219
land. The same is true of the Umbs and small feet of the ostrich. In the ostrich the digits of each foot are
reduced to t'.vo ; one digit being mainly employed in rurming.
Five-toed typical mammals, with heavy, powerful frames, are not so well adapted for running on hard
surfaces as the horses, but they still exist—as witness the elephant. There was no necessity to manufacture the
horse from a five-toed mammal. The modified hmbs and sohd hoofs of the horse are rather to be regarded as a
proof of type and of adaptation and design, and, as such, are to be placed in the same category as the swimming
tail of the fish and reptile ; the swimming feet of the frog, beaver, ornithorhynchus, bird, seal, and walrus ; and
the flying wings of the insect, bird, and bat. These are all examples of structures adapted to the media the animals
are to traverse (Plates 1., li., and lii.). They are special creations rather than mere modifications. Environment
and externahties cannot produce them : they are constructed in young animals during development and before
they are required. They are means to ends, but do not prove consanguinity and descent.
The rehabilitation of so-called missing links, and the modifications of existing structures, especially limb
structures, do not afford a safe basis for constructing a chart of consanguinity and descent. The presence of teeth
in the heads of a few extinct birds, the pattern of the teeth of the horse, and the decrease or increase in size, and
the appearance or disappearance of certain limb bones in the same or other individuals, do not prove evolution,
descent, or blood relationship. All these phenomena can be explained outside evolution and descent by reference
to the requirements of hfe and the exigencies of locomotion. That a few extinct birds had teeth does not prove
the descent of the bird from the reptile ;
size of others give a vahd clue to the descent of the horse.
neither do the suppression of certain limb bones and the greatly increased
As a matter of fact, the changes and modifications introduced into the animal series, because of modifications
in their organs of locomotion, are much greater than the data usually relied on for proving the doctrines of evolu-
tion and descent. I have, therefore, to express my conviction that evolutionists are not on safe ground when they
confine proofs of their views to one or two Unes of demonstration ; these being by no means the most obvious or
convincing.
Professor Huxley regards America as the original home of the horse, rather than Europe, and mentions inci-
dentally that the animal died out on the American continent and had to be re-introduced. If this view be correct,
it is difficult to understand how such a contingency could have arisen, considering the vast extent and the resources
of the continent occupied. The dying out view is essentially opposed to the theory of environment.
The evolution of the foot of the horse from a five-toed mammal is on a level with the evolution of the wing
of the pterodactyl, bird, and bat, from some five-fingered unknown flying ancestor. The wing of the bat (Fig. 38)
is composed of an arm, fore arm, wrist and five digits, with an outstretched membrane. The digits are nearly
of the same length, and take an equal share in supporting the membrane, and in the function of flight. In the
hand and phalanges of the pterodactyl (Fig. 37), as in the foot and phalanges of the horse, several of the digits
are dwarfed, one of them (the fourth) being enormously developed, and forming the chief organ of locomotion. Cer-
tain of the digits are dwarfed and rudimentary, but no one would, on this account, say that the ancient ptero-
dactyl was evolved from some extinct animal resembling the modern bat, which is a more highly differentiated
animal. Similar remarks are to be made of the wing of the bird. The wing of the bird is composed of a humerus
(arm bone), a radius and ulna (fore arm bones), modified carpal or wrist bones, and several digits or finger bones
run together and fused (Fig. 4:2). The arm and fore arm bones are independent and separate as in the primates
and in ourselves. The wrist and finger bones, on the contrary, are modified almost beyond recognition ; certain
of them being suppressed, while others are fused and sohdified to form one strong compound bone, which bears
the great primary feathers, the most essential structures in flight. The very remarkable modifications occurring
in the wing of the bird are quite as extraordinary as those occurring in the limb of the horse, but no one would
be so rash as to suppose that the bird, because of certain modifications in its wing, was descended from any form
of mammal, with distinct wrist bones and five distinct digits. Neither would the bat (a mammal, with five digits
in its wing) furnish the ancestor of the pterodactyl (Fig. 37). The dropping of certain bones, and the enlarging and
fusing of others, in the hmbs and travelhng organs of animals afford no proof of evolution in the strict or proper
sense. Evolution involves differentiation and increase in the number of parts. It is opposed to devolution, or the
decrease and suppression of parts. The increase and decrease of parts here referred to, which occur even in
the embryo, while inimical to the doctrine of evolution, supply strong arguments in favour of type, a First Cause,
design, and adaptation to given ends.
The modifications required for locomotion can be traced in all animals, however diverse. They are not confined
to alHed animals, and consequently, and strictly speaking, have nothing to do with evolution ;
connecting hnks, and points of resemblance and continuity, in the evolving forms.
evolution requiring
The connecting hnks in locomotion do not support the theory of evolution'. Thus the galeopithecus or flying