TELEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF ORGANISM. 5 1 



accident, and even of misfortune. If a man would 

 learn to paint, he must not theorize concerning art, nor 

 think much what he would do beforehand, but he must 

 do something it does not matter what, except that it 

 should be whatever at the moment will come handiest 

 and easiest to him ; and he must do that something as 

 well as he can. This will presently open the door for 

 something else, and a way will show itself which no 

 conceivable amount of searching would have discovered, 

 but which yet could never have been discovered by 

 sitting still and taking no pains at all. " Dans Familial," 

 says Buffon, " il y a inoins de jugement que de senti- 

 ment," * 



It may appear as though this were blowing hot and 

 cold with the same breath, inasmuch as I am insisting 

 that important modifications of structure have beeiv 

 always purposive ; and at the same time am denying 

 that the creature modified has had any purpose in the 

 greater part of all those actions which have at length 

 modified both structure and instinct. Thus I say that 

 a bird learns to swim without having any purpose of 

 learning to swim before it set itself to make those 

 movements which have resulted in its being able to do 

 so. At the same time I maintain that it has only 

 learned to swim by trying to swim, and this involves 

 the very purpose which I have just denied. The 

 reconciliation of these two apparently irreconcilable 

 contentions must be found in the consideration that the 

 bird was not the less trying to swim, merely because it 

 did not know the name we have chosen to give to the art 

 * Oiseaux,' vol. i. p. 5. 



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