Page:Creation by Evolution (1928).djvu/378

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CREATION BY EVOLUTION

human infant a real tail, complete, with all the muscles for wagging it, is formed; but after two or three weeks it begins to dwindle, and it finally disappears. Some of its muscles also atrophy; others are put to new purposes. No longer having any use as tail-movers, once the tail had vanished, they became converted into muscles that help to support and control certain organs of the body. Similar transformations can be found in every part of the human body; an organ or tissue that was originally developed for one purpose becomes modified to serve a totally different purpose. These statements about the tail are not theories or hypotheses, they are simple statements of fact, which any one can confirm by looking at a human embryo that has reached the third month of its development or at photographs of the embryo at that stage, which can be studied in any text-book of anatomy or embryology. The human embryo is at this stage so nearly identical with that of the monkey, dog, and pig at corresponding stages that only those who have expert knowledge can distinguish one from another. In fact, in many medical schools students examine the embryos of pigs to acquire a practical knowledge of the development of man.

2. In some animals that live in trees there is a peculiar muscle in the fore limb, or arm, which plays a part in the acrobratic feat of swinging from branch to branch. In the human arm this muscle is commonly missing, but it is sometimes found as a small and apparently useless vestige, a band of fibrous tissue representing a muscle that was a part of the bodies of our arboreal ancestors.

Neither of these illustrations is unique. The structure of any and every part of the human body tells the same sort of story of its history and affords the most unquestionable proof of the reality of man’s ancient lineage and of the immense antiquity of his pedigree. The student who is

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