202 LIFE AND HABIT. 



he has the power, and try to fulfil his wishes; one 

 cannot say which comes first, for the power and the 

 desire go always hand in hand, or nearly so, and the 

 whole business is nothing but a most vicious circle from 

 first to last. But it is plain that there is more to be 

 said on behalf of such circles than we have been in the 

 habit of thinking. Do what we will, we must each one 

 of us argue in a circle of our own, from which, so long 

 as we live at all, we can by no possibility escape. I 

 am not sure whether the frank acceptation and recog- 

 nition of this fact is not the best corrective for dogma- 

 tism that we are likely to find. 



We can understand that a pigeon might in the course 

 of ages grow to be a peacock if there was a persistent 

 desire on the part of the pigeon through all these ages 

 to do so. We know very well that this has not probably 

 occurred in nature, inasmuch as no pigeon is at all likely 

 to wish to be very different from what it is now. The 

 idea of being anything very different from what it now 

 is, would be too wide a cross with the pigeon's other 

 ideas for it to entertain it seriously. If the pigeon had 

 never seen a peacock, it would not be able to conceive the 

 idea, so as to be able to make towards it ; if, on the 

 other hand, it had seen one, it would not probably either 

 want to become one, or think that it would be any use 

 wanting seriously, even though it were to feel a passing 

 fancy to be so gorgeously arrayed ; it would therefore 

 lack that faith without which no action, and with which, 

 every action, is possible. 



That creatures have conceived the idea of making 

 themselves like other creatures or objects which it was 



