128 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
variation is not essential. All animals in a state of nature 
are kept, by the constant struggle for existence and the 
survival of the fittest, in such a state of perfect health and 
usually superabundant vigour, that in all ordinary circumstances 
they possess a surplus power in every important organ — a 
surplus only drawn upon in cases of the direst necessity when 
their very existence is at stake. It follows, therefore, that 
any additional power given to one of the component parts of 
an organ must be useful — an increase, for example, either in 
the wing muscles or in the form or length of the wing might give 
some increased powers of flight; and thus alternate variations — 
in one generation in the muscles, in another generation in the 
wing itself—might be as effective in permanently improving the 
powers of flight as coincident variations at longer intervals. 
On either supposition, however, this objection appears to have 
little weight if we take into consideration the large amount of 
coincident variability that has been shown to exist. 
The Beginnings of Important Organs. 
We now come to an objection which has perhaps been 
more frequently urged than any other, and which Darwin 
himself felt to have much weight — the first beginnings of im¬ 
portant organs, such, for example, as wings, eyes, mammary 
glands, and numerous other structures. It is urged, that it 
is almost impossible to conceive how the first rudiments of 
these could have been of any use, and, if not of use they could 
not have been preserved and further developed by natural 
selection. 
Now, the first remark to be made on objections of this 
nature is, that they are really outside the question of the 
origin of all existing species from allied species not very far 
removed from them, which is all that Darwin -undertook to 
prove by means of his theory. Organs and structures such as 
those above mentioned all date back to a very remote past, 
when the world and its inhabitants were both very different 
from what they are now. To ask of a new theory that it 
shall reveal to us exactly what took place in remote geological 
epochs, and how it took place, is unreasonable. The most 
that should be asked is, that some probable or possible mode of 
origination should be pointed out in some at least of these 
