NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 275 



nature similarly to convert any ordinary bird, a thrush 

 say, into a woodpecker only by the struggle for exist- 

 ence! Is it conceivable is it not absurd? If the 

 fancier were deprived of the power of pairing, is there 

 any simulation of a struggle for existence possible to 

 him that would still accomplish his purpose ? 



It is at least natural to shrink from agreement with 

 the putting of such weight on the accidental variation of 

 the individual in wind and weather, and at the beck and 

 bidding of every common contingency. Of course the 

 fact of such variations never gives a moment's doubt : it 

 is only the weight of the enormous responsibility with 

 which each singly superficial accident is to be supposed 

 burdened, that arrests conviction. Of course all varies, 

 nothing remains the same, no two things are the same : 

 but this march from a single external abstract ace of 

 accident to a concrete mternality of plan ? We do see 

 accidents of the individual daily: but they all revert. 

 Despite every accident the individual still remains in the 

 bosom of the species. A blackbird shall appear in your 

 garden with a white feather, but it will also disappear 

 not but that such a variety may elsewhere exist, as in 

 Arcadian Cyllene '. But really thousands and thousands 

 of such accidents we see revert, and daily too. Deformed 

 parents may reappear in perfect Phcebuses of children. 

 The left-handed father may have a dozen right-handed 

 sons. If the first Strabo squinted, or the original Paetus 

 blinked, so, in all probability, did not the last. Plancus, 

 Plantus, Pansa, Scanrus, Yarns, Valgus are all illustrious 

 names enough : it is pretty certain that not every one 

 that bore them was like the first of each, either plain- 

 soled, or splay-footed, or spread-toed, or duck-ankled, or 

 knock-kneed, or bandy-legged. These are the sort of 

 variations feigned, and not one of them but reverts. 



It is true also that Mr. Darwin has still a word to 



