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The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
page 71 of 1105 (06%)
interval of hundreds, or more probably of thousands of generations.

These various cases of reversion are so closely related to those of
rudimentary organs given in the first chapter, that many of them might have
been indifferently introduced either there or here. Thus a human uterus
furnished with cornua may be said to represent, in a rudimentary condition,
the same organ in its normal state in certain mammals. Some parts which
are rudimentary in man, as the os coccyx in both sexes, and the mammae in
the male sex, are always present; whilst others, such as the supracondyloid
foramen, only occasionally appear, and therefore might have been introduced
under the head of reversion. These several reversionary structures, as
well as the strictly rudimentary ones, reveal the descent of man from some
lower form in an unmistakable manner.

CORRELATED VARIATION.

In man, as in the lower animals, many structures are so intimately related,
that when one part varies so does another, without our being able, in most
cases, to assign any reason. We cannot say whether the one part governs
the other, or whether both are governed by some earlier developed part.
Various monstrosities, as I. Geoffroy repeatedly insists, are thus
intimately connected. Homologous structures are particularly liable to
change together, as we see on the opposite sides of the body, and in the
upper and lower extremities. Meckel long ago remarked, that when the
muscles of the arm depart from their proper type, they almost always
imitate those of the leg; and so, conversely, with the muscles of the legs.
The organs of sight and hearing, the teeth and hair, the colour of the skin
and of the hair, colour and constitution, are more or less correlated.
(55. The authorities for these several statements are given in my
'Variation of Animals under Domestication,' vol. ii. pp. 320-335.)
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