that we rightly deny its existence, nevertheless in each case there will be an element of the opposite, and the residuary element would, if seen through a mental microscope, be found to contain a residuary element of its opposite, and this again of its opposite, and so on ad infinitum, as with mirrors standing face to face. This having been explained, and it being understood that when we speak of design in organism we do so with a mental reserve of exceptis excipiendis, there should be no hesitation in holding the various modifications of plants and animals to be in such preponderating measure due to function, that design, which underlies function, is the fittest idea with which to connect them in our minds.

We will now proceed to inquire how Mr. Darwin came to substitute, or try to substitute, the survival of the luckiest fittest, for the survival of the most cunning fittest, as held by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck; or more briefly how he came to substitute luck for cunning.

CHAPTER TWELVE: WHY DARWIN'S VARIATIONS WERE ACCIDENTAL

OME MAY PERHAPS DENY THAT MR. DARWIN did this, and say he laid so much stress on use and disuse as virtually to make function his main factor of evolution.

If, indeed, we confine ourselves to isolated passages, we shall find little difficulty in making out a strong case to this effect. Certainly most people believe this to be Mr. Darwin's doctrine, and considering how long and fully he had the ear of the public, it is not likely they would think thus if Mr. Darwin had willed otherwise, nor could he have induced them to think as they do if he had not said a good deal that was capable of the construction so commonly put upon it; but it is hardly necessary, when addressing biologists, to insist on the fact that Mr. Darwin's distinctive doctrine is the denial of the comparative importance of function, or use and disuse, as a purveyor of variations,-with some, but not very considerable, exceptions, chiefly in the cases of domesticated animals.

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He did not, however, make his distinctive feature as distinct as he should have done. Sometimes he said one thing, and sometimes the directly opposite. Sometimes, for example, the conditions of existence included natural selection" or the fact that the best adapted to their surroundings live longest and leave most offspring; sometimes" the principle of natural selection" fully embraced" "the expression of conditions of existence." 2 It would not be easy to find more unsatisfactory writing than this is, nor any more clearly indicating a mind ill at ease with itself. Sometimes "ants work by inherited instincts and inherited tools"; sometimes, again, it is surprising that the case of ants working by inherited instincts has not been brought as a demonstrative argument against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit, as advanced by Lamarck." Sometimes the winglessness of beetles inhabiting ocean islands is 'mainly due to natural selection," and though we might

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be tempted to ascribe the rudimentary condition of the wing to disuse, we are on no account to do so-though disuse was probably to some extent " combined with "natural selection; at other times" it is probable that disuse has been the main means of rendering the wings of beetles living on small exposed islands " rudimentary. We may remark in passing that if disuse, as Mr. Darwin admits on this occasion, is the main agent in rendering an organ rudimentary, use should have been the main agent in rendering it the opposite of rudimentary- that is to say, in bringing about its development. The ostensible raison d'être, however, of the Origin of Species is to maintain that this is not the case.

There is hardly an opinion on the subject of descent with modification which does not find support in some one passage or another of the Origin of Species. If it were desired to show that there is no substantial difference between the doctrine of Erasmus Darwin and that of his grandson, it would be easy to make out a good case for this, in spite of Mr. Darwin's calling his grandfather's views " erroneous,' in the historical sketch prefixed to the later editions of the Origin of Species. Passing over the passage already quoted on p. 46 of this book, in which Mr. Darwin declares "habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary "-a sentence, by the way, than which none can be either more unfalteringly Lamarckian or less tainted with the vices of Mr. Darwin's later style-passing this over as having been written some twenty years before the Origin of Species-the last paragraph of the Origin of Species itself is purely Lamarckian and Erasmus-Darwinian. It declares the laws in accordance with which organic forms assumed their present shape to be"Growth with reproduction... Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life and from use and disuse," etc." Wherein does this differ from the confession of faith made by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck? Where are the accidental, fortuitous, spontaneous variations now? And if they are not found important enough to Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 401. 2 Ibid., 1st ed., p. 490.

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demand mention in this peroration and stretto, as it were, of the whole matter, in which special prominence should be given to the special feature of the work, where ought they to be made important?

Mr. Darwin immediately goes on: "A ratio of existence so high as to lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection, entailing divergence of character and the extinction of less improved forms"; so that natural selection turns up after all. Yes-in the letters that compose it, but not in the spirit; not in the special sense up to this time attached to it in the Origin of Species. The expression as used here is one with which Erasmus Darwin would have found little fault, for it means not as elsewhere in Mr. Darwin's book and on his title-page the preservation of "favoured" or lucky varieties, but the preservation of varieties that have come to be varieties through the causes assigned in the preceding two or three lines of Mr. Darwin's sentence; and these are mainly functional or ErasmusDarwinian; for the indirect action of the conditions of life is mainly functional, and the direct action is admitted on all hands to be but small.

It now appears more plainly, as insisted upon on an earlier page, that there is not one natural selection and one survival of the fittest, but two, inasmuch as there are two classes of variations from which nature (supposing no exception taken to her personification) can select. The bottles have the same labels, and they are of the same colour, but the one holds brandy, and the other toast and water. Nature can, by a figure of speech, be said to select from variations that are mainly functional or from variations that are mainly accidental; in the first case she will eventually get an accumulation of variation, and widely different types will come into existence; in the second, the variations will not occur with sufficient steadiness for accumulation to be possible. In the body of Mr. Darwin's book the variations are supposed to be mainly due to accident, and function, though not denied all efficacy, is declared to be the greatly

subordinate factor; natural selection, therefore, has been hitherto throughout tantamount to luck; in the peroration the position is reversed in toto; the selection is now made from variations into which luck has entered so little that it may be neglected, the greatly preponderating factor being function; here, then, natural selection is tantamount to cunning. We are such slaves of words that, seeing the words "natural selection" employed-and forgetting that the results ensuing on natural selection will depend entirely on what it is that is selected from, so that the gist of the matter lies in this and not in the words " natural selection ”— it escaped us that a change of front had been made, and a conclusion entirely alien to the tenor of the whole book smuggled into the last paragraph as the one which it had been written to support; the book preached luck, the peroration cunning.

And there can be no doubt Mr. Darwin intended that the change of front should escape us; for it cannot be believed that he did not perfectly well know what he had done. Mr. Darwin edited and re-edited with such minuteness of revision that it may be said no detail escaped him provided it was small enough; it is incredible that he should have allowed this paragraph to remain from first to last unchanged (except for the introduction of the words " by the Creator,' which are wanting in the first edition) if they did not convey the conception he most wished his readers to retain. Even if in his first edition he had failed to see that he was abandoning in his last paragraph all that it had been his ostensible object most especially to support in the body of his book, he must have become aware of it long before he revised the Origin of Species for the last time; still he never altered it, and never put us on our guard.

It was not Mr. Darwin's manner to put his reader on his guard; we might as well expect Mr. Gladstone to put us on our guard about the Irish land bills. Caveat lector seems to have been his motto. Mr. Spencer, in the articles already referred to, is at pains to show that Mr. Darwin's opinions