Page:Darwin - The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects (1877).djvu/253

. VIII. can be most surely made out by tracing their embryological development when that is possible; or by the discovery of organs in a rudimentary condition; or by tracing, through a long series of beings, a close gradation from one part to another, until the two parts or organs, though employed for widely different functions and most unlike each other, can be joined by a succession of short links. No instance is known of a close gradation between two organs, unless they are homologically one and the same organ.

The importance of the science of Homology rests on its giving us the key-note of the possible amount of difference in plan within any group; it allows us to class under proper heads the most diversified organs; it shows us gradations which would otherwise have been overlooked, and thus aids us in classification; it explains many monstrosities; it leads to the detection of obscure and hidden parts, or mere vestiges of parts, and shows us the meaning of rudiments. Besides these uses, Homology clears away the mist from such terms as the scheme of nature, ideal types, archetypal patterns or ideas, &c.; for these terms come to express real facts. The naturalist, thus guided, sees that all homologous parts or organs, however much they may be diversified, are modifications of one and the same ancestral organ; in tracing existing gradations he gains a clue in tracing, as far as that is possible, the probable course of modification through which beings have passed during a long line of generations. He may feel assured that, whether he follows embryological development, or searches for the merest rudiment, or traces gradations between the most different beings, he is pursuing the same object by different routes, and is tending towards the knowledge of the actual progenitor of the group, as it once grew and