THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



ing in direction, or a curved line. Professor EUidt's 

 example of the bullet, and it is a kind generally used 

 by biologists, is singularly unfortunate; a single dis- 

 turbance in the path of the bullet may make it miss 

 London, but progressive evolution requires that a 

 force is acting at points all along its path to change 

 it from a straight to a curved line. Thus, even if we 

 accept the postulates, that a favourable variation is 

 transmitted, that the struggle for existence is so in- 

 tense that all those without a slightly longer neck die, 

 we must assume either that a continuous tendency to 

 vary in the same direction exists, or that these unusual 

 conditions are repeated many times by chance, be- 

 fore the giraffe's neck becomes so conspicuously elon- 

 gated. The Darwinians can permit neither of these 

 assumptions. 



We have, however, gone much too far in our admis- 

 sions; it is impossible to assume them. Even Darwin, 

 with his attention riveted on the struggle for exist- 

 ence, does not ask us to suppose that an inch difference 

 in length of neck means death or life to a giraffe. 

 Let us follow his own words: "Giraffes which were 

 the highest browsers, and were able during dearths 

 to reach even an inch or two above the others, 

 will often have been preserved; for they will have 

 roamed over the whole country in search of food. 

 That the individuals of the same species often differ 

 slightly in the relative lengths of all their parts may 

 be seen in many works of natural history, in which 



L 224 3 



