RESULT. 343 



indefiniteness of superfluous phrase precisely then when it 

 is that vagueness and indefiniteness should be expressly 

 eschewed. Divergence, natural selection, appear for the 

 most part, perhaps, only in a mist of general terms, with 

 never a moment, and never a connection of moment 

 with moment, prescinded. An expression or two, extem- 

 poraneously occurring here and there in letters to Lyell, 

 will pretty certainly do more to crystallise the particular 

 theory than all the four hundred and odd closely-printed 

 pages of the sixth edition of the Origin. 



In regard to Divergence, for example, take this 

 sentence, which is meant to go precisely to the centre of 

 what is concerned and make all clear even to his chil- 

 dren (i. 84): "The solution, as I believe, is that the 

 modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms 

 tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified 

 places in the economy of nature " (or see in the Origin 

 the whole theme formally discussed at pp. 86 sqq.). 

 When we understand that this means only that a stock 

 of horses may " split up into race-horses, dray-horses," 

 etc., we look back with astonishment at that so gratuitous 

 and misleading phraseological bigness. I say misleading ; 

 for it is in every way misleading. It is misleading for 

 the reader, who remains not without perplexity, it may be, 

 as to how or what they are these dominant and increasing 

 forms in the economy of nature. It is misleading for 

 Mr. Darwin himself, who, quitting the definitely seen for 

 the indefinite and unseen, is tempted to call upon the 

 ingenuity of his imagination for the transference of a 

 relation domestically with horses at home to a lair in 

 the jungle wildly with the ferce abroad. " Take the case 

 of a carnivorous quadruped," he says, " it can succeed in 

 increasing only by its varying descendants seizing on 

 places at present occupied by other animals : some of 

 them, for instance, being enabled to feed on new kinds of 



