Archive image from page 284 of Darwin and after Darwin An. Darwin and after Darwin. An exposition of the Darwinian theory and a discussion of post-Darwinian questions darwinafterdarwi02roma Year: 1895 Characters as Adaptive and Specific. 267 a reductio ad absurdum with regard to the generic character than the one just presented with regard to its variants as specific characters. And, of course, this twofold absurdity is presented in all cases where a generic character is unequally distributed among the constituent species of a genus. But here is an illustration of another class of cases. Mr.
Archive image from page 284 of Darwin and after Darwin An. Darwin and after Darwin. An exposition of the Darwinian theory and a discussion of post-Darwinian questions darwinafterdarwi02roma Year: 1895 Characters as Adaptive and Specific. 267 a reductio ad absurdum with regard to the generic character than the one just presented with regard to its variants as specific characters. And, of course, this twofold absurdity is presented in all cases where a generic character is unequally distributed among the constituent species of a genus. But here is an illustration of another class of cases. Mr. Tomes has shown that the molar teeth of the Orang present an extraordinary and altogether super- fluous amount of attachment in their sockets—the fangs Fig. 4.—Lower Teeth of Orang (after Tomes). being not only exceedingly long, and therefore deeply buried in the jaw-bone, but also curving round one another, so as still further to strengthen the whole1. In the allied genera of anthropoid apes there is no such abnormal amount of attachment. Now, the question is. of what conceivable use can it ever have been, either to the existing genus, or to its parent species, that such an abnormal amount of attachment should obtain? It certainly is not re- quired to prevent dislocation of the teeth, seeing that in all allied genera, and even in man himself, the 1 A Manual of Dental Anatomy, p. 455.
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