CHAP - xr -l AN EPISODE. 337 



Darwin. A number of such statements* not, indeed, his 

 earliest, but from the third edition of &amp;lt; The Origin of Species 

 -were brought forward in the July number of the Quar 

 terly .Review. They were published for the purpose of 

 guarding the public from a hasty acceptance of Mr. Darwin s 

 dogmatic expressions, merely in deference to his authority, 

 and without a careful estimate of the value of the facts 

 brought forward by him. 



&quot;The passages referred to, seem to me to contain state 

 ments amply sufficient to repel Mr. Wright s charge against 

 me of injustice to Mr. Darwin, and to show, on the one hand 

 that the original theory of the origin of species was such as I 

 have represented it to have been ; and, on the other, that 

 Mr. Darwin has, in fact, abandoned the position which he 

 originally took up. 



&quot;We have, however, yet more explicit declarations as to 

 the occurrence of characters for which not only his theory 

 will not account, but which, in his own words, annihilate his 

 theory. He has told us in The Origin of Species that this 

 fatal consequence would ensue from the discovery of cha 

 racters not produced by slight beneficial modifications, and 

 yet we now read : 



&quot; No doubt man, as well as every other animal, presents structures 

 which, as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, are not now 

 of any service to him, nor have been so during any former period of 

 his existence, either in relation to his general conditions of life, or of 

 one sex to the other. Such structures cannot be accounted for by any 

 form of selection, or by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of 

 parts. 



&quot; Besides all this, in the fifth edition of The Origin of 

 Species, p. 104, we find the following significant passage : 



Until reading an able and valuable article in the North British 

 Review (1867), I did not appreciate how rarely simple variations 

 whether slightly or strongly marked, could be perpetuated. 



214 o^r l be /r nd ln , T , he rigin f S * eci &amp;lt; 3rd editioa &amp;gt; PP- 208, 

 H &amp;gt; iA 0t o5? ! 5 , th . edltlon &amp;gt; P- 104. The Descent of Man, vol i. pp 125 

 lo2, lr.4, 223 ; vol. ,1. pp. 176, 198, 387, and the postscript at. the begiS,,* of 

 the volume. Animals and PJants under Domestication, vol ii p 57 



