Our theory, I may remark would permit an organ <to> become abortive with respect to its primary use, to be turned to any other purpose, (as the buds in a cauliflower) thus we can see no difficulty in bones of male marsupials being used as fulcrum of muscles, or style of marygold{172},--indeed in one point of view, the heads of [vertebrated] animal may be said to be abortive vertebrae turned into other use: legs of some crustacea abortive jaws, &c., &c. De Candolle's analogy of table covered with dishes{173}. {172} In the male florets of certain Compositae the style functions merely as a piston for forcing out the pollen. {173} <On the back of the page is the following.> If abortive organs are a trace preserved by hereditary tendency, of organ in ancestor of use, we can at once see why important in natural classification, also why more plain in young animal because, as in last section, the selection has altered the old animal most. I repeat, these wondrous facts, of parts created for no use in past and present time, all can by my theory receive simple explanation; or they receive none and we must be content with some such empty metaphor, as that of De Candolle, who compares creation to a well covered table, and says abortive organs may be compared to the dishes (some should be empty) placed symmetrically! <The following passage was possibly intended to be inserted here.> Degradation and complication see Lamarck: no tendency to perfection: if room, [even] high organism would have greater power in beating lower one, thought <?> to be selected for a degraded end. Sec. X. RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION.