80 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



and aborted organs, etc., will cease to be metaphorical, 

 and will have a plain signification. When we no longer 

 look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as 

 something wholly beyond his comprehension ; when we 

 regard every production of nature as one which has had 

 a long history ; when we contemplate every complex 

 structure and instinct as the summing up of many con- 

 trivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way 

 as any great mechanical invention is the summing up of 

 the labor, the experience, the reason, and even the blun- 

 ders of numerous workmen ; when we thus view each 

 organic being, how far more interesting — I speak from 

 experience — does the study of natural history become ! 



A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be 

 opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correla- 

 tion, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct ac- 

 tion of external conditions, and so forth. The study of 

 domestic productions will rise immensely in value. A 

 new variety raised by man will be a more important and 

 interesting subject for study than one more species added 

 to the infinitude of already recorded species. Our classi- 

 fications will come to be, as far as they can be so made, 

 genealogies, and will then truly give what may be called 

 the plan of creation. 





