Fast eBooks

But this remarkable advance in the higher and larger groups does not
imply any universal law of progress in organisation, because we have at
the same time numerous examples (as has been already pointed out) of the
persistence of lowly organised forms, and also of absolute degradation
or degeneration. Serpents, for example, have been developed from some
lizard-like type which has lost its limbs; and though this loss has
enabled them to occupy fresh places in nature and to increase and
flourish to a marvellous extent, yet it must be considered to be a
retrogression rather than an advance in organisation. The same remark
will apply to the whale tribe among mammals; to the blind amphibia and
insects of the great caverns; and among plants to the numerous cases in
which flowers, once specially adapted to be fertilised by insects, have
lost their gay corollas and their special adaptations, and have become
degraded into wind-fertilised forms. Such are our plantains, our meadow
burnet, and even, as some botanists maintain, our rushes, sedges, and
grasses.


Pages:
203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227