Evolution; its nature, its evidences, and its relation to religious thought . Fig. 63.—Tail of a modern bird. first—in Jurassic—the tail is fully a half of the wholevertebral column. It then gradually shortens up untilit becomes the aborted organ of typical mod- «^ ^^ ern birds. Now, inembryonic develop-ment, the tail of themodern typical birdpasses through allthese stages. At firstthe tail is nearly one half the whole vertebral column ; then, as developmentgoes on, while the rest of the body grows, the growth ofthe tail stops, and thus finally becomes the aborted or-gan we now find. The ontog
Evolution; its nature, its evidences, and its relation to religious thought . Fig. 63.—Tail of a modern bird. first—in Jurassic—the tail is fully a half of the wholevertebral column. It then gradually shortens up untilit becomes the aborted organ of typical mod- «^ ^^ ern birds. Now, inembryonic develop-ment, the tail of themodern typical birdpasses through allthese stages. At firstthe tail is nearly one half the whole vertebral column ; then, as developmentgoes on, while the rest of the body grows, the growth ofthe tail stops, and thus finally becomes the aborted or-gan we now find. The ontogeny still passes throughthe stages of the phylogeny. The same is true of alltailless animals. The frog is tailed in the larval condi-tion, because its ancestors were tailed amphibians. Evenman himself is endowed with a much more considerabletail, viz., eight or nine joints, in his early embryoniccondition.* We have taken all onr examples from vertebrates,but quite as many and as good examples might be foundamong articulates. Insects, in the larval state, areworm-lik
Size: 1186px × 2108px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectreligion, bookyear192
