THE GIRAFFE. 19 



alteration in an animal are so complex that they 

 cannot possibly be brought about except by 

 the inherited effect of the use and disuse of the 

 various parts concerned. He holds, for instance, 

 that natural selection is inadequate to effect 

 the numerous concomitant changes necessitated 

 by such developments as that of the long neck 

 of the giraffe. Darwin, however, on the contrary, 

 holds that natural selection alone "would have 

 sufficed for the production of this remarkable 

 quadruped." l He is surprised at Mr. Spencer's 

 view that natural selection can do so little in 

 modifying the higher animals. Thus one of the 

 chief arguments with which Mr. Spencer supports 

 his theory is so poorly founded as to be rejected by 

 a far greater authority on such subjects. All that 

 is needed is that natural selection should preserve 

 the tallest giraffes through times of famine by their 



1 Origin of Species, pp. 198-9 ; Variation of Animals and Plants 

 under Domestication, vol. ii. p. 328 footnote, also p. 206. 



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