3. As to homologous anatomical structure, _e. g._ of the arm, fore-leg, wing, fin, paddle――there are abundant reasons for its existence aside from the assumption of Darwin that it proves a common ancestry for man, monkey, calf, bull-dog, eagle, toad and whale. The ball and socket joint at man’s shoulder is the perfect thing for use. Equally so is the same kind of joint for the fore-leg of a horse, the wing of an eagle or the fin of a fish. God made the anatomy of man’s arm perfect. What forbids that he should make an equally perfect machinery for the motions and various uses of other animals? The reason of this uniformly perfect machinery is found in the wisdom and benevolence of the Great Maker, and proves nothing in favor of a common descent from some one parent, _i. e._ it proves nothing _unless_ you may assume that God could not have made two kinds of animals with homologous anatomical structures――two kinds, each with machinery perfect for its purposes.
4. As to the similar appearance of the embryo in very dissimilar races, there may be differences in the embryo which no microscope and no human test have yet discovered. The force of this argument seems to me to come rather from ignorance than from knowledge.
5. As to rudimentary organs, their history is very obscure and their design also. I suggest that Mr. Darwin begin with the history and the reason for the rudimentary organs which appear on the bosom of the male in the species man. When he shall have mastered this problem――the history and the reason――we can afford to consider his argument therefrom in proof that man has a common ancestry with whatsoever other animal he may find having this male organ, not rudimentary but in full activity. Probably he will prove that man must have come down by descent from that class of animals which economically combine the two sexes in one and the same individual!
_Some objections of a more general bearing upon Darwin’s scheme._
1. His system requires indefinite, almost infinite, ages of time back of the Silurian strata, _i. e._ back of the oldest known remains of life, vegetable or animal, on our globe.[11] That is, he requires for the development of his system an almost infinite extension of time back beyond the earliest traces or proofs of life, vegetable or animal, on our globe. And this, he would have men believe, is the perfection of modern Science!――a science which pushes its sphere _in time_ back indefinitely beyond all known facts upon the bare evidence of theories and assumed analogies!――――But even this gives not the full force of the objection made by true Science to his system. It is not merely that he builds upon assumed facts where no known facts are――which is building upon nothing――but where no facts _can be_, which is building not merely upon negatives but upon impossibilities. There is no room for his assumed facts where he locates them. If Geology proves any thing it proves that vegetable and animal life commenced on our planet as soon as the planet was ready and _not sooner_, and that we have the remains of the earliest living organisms in the oldest fossil-bearing rocks. His scheme is therefore conditioned upon impossibilities and must be false.