If the Darwinian theory is not the true one-we are told-if man and ape do not descend from a common ancestor, then we are called upon to explain the reason of:-
(I.) The similarity of structure between the two; the fact that the higher animal world-man and beast-is physically of one type or pattern.
(II.) The presence of rudimentary organs in man, i.e., traces of former organs now atrophied by disuse. Some of these organs, it is asserted, could not have had any scope for employment, except for a semi-animal, semi-arboreal monster. Why, again, do we find in Man those "rudimentary" organs (as useless as its rudimentary wing is to the Apteryx of Australia), the vermiform appendix of the cœcum, the ear muscles,* the "rudimentary tail" (with which children are still sometimes born), etc., etc.? (SD p.680-1)

"Now man and ape present a very striking contrast in respect to type. Their organs. . . correspond almost exactly term for term: but these are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged that he is essentially a walker, while in apes they necessitate his being a climber. . . . There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction. . . . A glance at the page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes is a sufficiently convincing proof." (SD p.666-7)

The Dryopithecus, for instance, is found more perfect anatomically, more fit for a greater development of brain power, than the modern gorilla or gibbon? How is this, then? Are we to believe that the constitution of all those colossal land and sea-dragons, of the gigantic flying reptiles, was not far more developed and complex than the anatomy of the lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and even of the whales-in short, all those animals we are acquainted with? (SD p.733)

It is just as possible that future should have in store for us the discovery of the giant skeleton of an Atlantean, 30 ft. high, as the fossil of a pithecoid "missing link": only the former is more probable. (SD p.674)