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remain of the old democratic system in which the king was elected by the people.1

The English sovereignty of the present day is merely a decorative institution, the real head of the Government being the Prime Minister, who is nominated in fact if not in theory by the public. This system may almost be regarded as a return to bygone democracy. Nobody would wish, however, to revive the old system of elective sovereignty, and to retrace in an inverse direction the various stages of its degeneration.

CHAPTER III

CAN RUDIMENTARY ORGANS OR INSTITUTIONS RE-
DEVELOP AND ASSUME NEW FUNCTIONS?

THE few facts which we are able to cite on this subject must be received with considerable caution.

1 The formality of an election disappeared during the Tudor period. The coronation of Henry VIII. was the last occasion on which the formula was read which set forth the national agreement with and recognition of, the succession. The king was, in fact, declared chosen and elected. This formula of election, which disappeared after the coronation of Henry VIII., is recalled to mind by the conclusion of the coronation ceremony of the present day. The archbishop, walking in succession to all four corners of the platform upon which the throne is placed, addresses the people in the following terms: “Gentlemen, I herewith present to you the undisputed sovereign of the realm. Come all who are present and offer homage to him. Are you prepared to offer it?" and the people signifying their assent by acclamation, cry, "God save the Queen or "God save the King." (De Franqueville, Le gouvernement et le parlement Britanniques, i., p. 291.)

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SECTION I.

Rudimentary organs.

1. Animals. In Birgus latro (a land-crab of the Philippines), the gills are atrophied and the bronchial chamber is very richly supplied with blood vessels, while a kind of incipient lung is formed from the lining membrane of the reduced bronchial chamber.1

In

However, it is by no means certain that the atrophy of the bronchial apparatus has preceded this development of a pulmonary apparatus. the following case it rather seems to be one in which a rudimentary structure has redeveloped in order to assume a new function. In the development of the urinary organs, it appears that the ducts of the mesonephros are quite independent of those of the pronephros, although these mesonephric ducts become functional later in the embryonic life than the pronephric ducts. They are, nevertheless, formed at an earlier stage, and their rudiments have appeared before there is any trace of the others. From this fact it would appear that in some ancestors of existing vertebrates there existed simultaneously mesonephric canaliculi and canals homologous with them, but exercising a different function. Such a condition actually exists in Amphioxus: in the branchial region of that animal there are pronephric urinary canals and genital chambers which

1 Semper, "The Natural Conditions of Existence as they affect Animal Life." (International Scientific Series.)

are homologous with mesonephric spaces; but these latter do not exist as genital chambers in higher vertebrates.1

It must be noted that the homology between mesonephric spaces and the genital spaces of Amphioxus, as made by these writers, is not universally accepted.

2. Plants. The Scophulariacea, which have usually four stamens, are derived from ancestors which possessed five. Usually the fifth stamen is only represented by a tiny process which rapidly atrophies. However, in Pentstemon the fifth or posterior stamen is developed, not as a functional stamen, but as a staminode, the function of which is to stretch open the flower to make it accessible to hymenopterous insects with short probosces.

Can it be said that in such cases a rudimentary organ has really become redeveloped to assume a new function? To establish this it would be necessary to show in the case we have just mentioned, that the stamen did not become transformed directly into a staminode, but that it first became rudimentary and then developed afresh into a staminode.

An interesting fact is, that in some hybrid varieties of Pentstemon the staminode becomes fertile

1 Boveri, Die Nierencanalchen der Amphioxus. (Zool. Jahrbuch. Abth. Anat. und Ontogenie der Thiere, vol. v., 1892.)

Wiedersheim, Grundzüge der Vergleichenden Anatomie der Wir belthiere. Jena, 1893.

again. In some flowers sent to us by Mr Cannell of Swanley, the number of petals was increased to six, seven, eight, or nine. In some of these the posterior stamen was sterile and like a staminode; in others there were five fertile stamens. It is obvious that in this case the staminode had resumed its original function after having lost it.

SECTION II.

Rudimentary institutions.

The Levirat.-In his work entitled Tableau des origines et de l'évolution de la famille et de la propriété, Kovalewsky mentions an instance of a reduced institution which, without having first ceased to be functional, became transformed into another institution.

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"The custom mentioned in the Bible of alloting a woman to the brother of her deceased husband, is explained by the primitive condition of things with regard to the relations between the sexes; all the women were the common property of the men belonging to one group of relations. Under the name of levirat, this custom survived for several centuries, owing to the idea which arose later on that a wife was property. Consequently, on the death of the husband, the widow, along with his other belongings, was treated as the inheritance of the person whom the death promoted to the rank of chief or head of the family community."

The levirat, a family institution, thus derived from the old system of marriage by groups, was transformed by degrees into an economic institution. It is important to notice, however, that this transformation was effected without the institution having even been reduced to the condition of a mere survival

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