{180} We were asked by a learned brother philosopher who saw this
article in MS. what we meant by alluding to rudimentary organs in
machines. Could we, he asked, give any example of such organs? We
pointed to the little protuberance at the bottom of the bowl of our
tobacco pipe. This organ was originally designed for the same purpose as
the rim at the bottom of a tea-cup, which is but another form of the same
function. Its purpose was to keep the heat of the pipe from marking the
table on which it rested. Originally, as we have seen in very early
tobacco pipes, this protuberance was of a very different shape to what it
is now. It was broad at the bottom and flat, so that while the pipe was
being smoked the bowl might rest upon the table. Use and disuse have
here come into play and served to reduce the function to its present
rudimentary condition. That these rudimentary organs are rarer in
machinery than in animal life is owing to the more prompt action of the
human selection as compared with the slower but even surer operation of
natural selection. Man may make mistakes; in the long run nature never
does so. We have only given an imperfect example, but the intelligent
reader will supply himself with illustrations.