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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: their conditions of existence. We cannot, for instance, suppose that in
the embryos of the vertebrata the peculiar loop-like course of the arteries
near the branchial slits are related to similar conditions,--in the young
mammal which is nourished in the womb of its mother, in the egg of the bird
which is hatched in a nest, and in the spawn of a frog under water. We
have no more reason to believe in such a relation, than we have to believe
that the same bones in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, and fin of a
porpoise, are related to similar conditions of life. No one will suppose
that the stripes on the whelp of a lion, or the spots on the young
blackbird, are of any use to these animals, or are related to the
conditions to which they are exposed.
On the Origin of Species |
