INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 245 



organ appears. So far as I can see, I am insisting on 

 little more than this. 



Once grant that a blacksmith's arm grows thicker 

 through hammering iron, and you have an organ modified 

 in accordance with a need or wish. Let the desire and 

 the practice be remembered, and go on for long enough, 

 and the slight alterations of the organ will be accumu- 

 lated, until they are checked either by the creature's 

 having got all that he cares about making serious further 

 effort to obtain, or until his wants prove inconvenient 

 to other creatures that are stronger than he, and he is 

 hence brought to a standstill. Use and disuse, then, with 

 me, and, as I gather also, with Lamarck, are the keys to 

 the position, coupled, of course, with continued person- 

 ality and memory. No sudden and striking changes 

 would be effected, except that occasionally a blunder 

 might prove a happy accident, as happens not unfre- 

 quently with painters, musicians, chemists, and in- 

 ventors at the present day; or sometimes a creature, 

 with exceptional powers of memory or reflection, would 

 make his appearance in this race or in that. We all 

 profit by our accidents as well as by our more cunning 

 contrivances, so that analogy would point in the direc- 

 tion of thinking that many of the most happy thoughts 

 in the animal and vegetable kingdom were originated 

 much as certain discoveries that have been made by 

 accident among ourselves. These would be originally 

 blind variations, though even so, probably less blind 

 than we think, if we could know the whole truth. 

 When originated, they would be eagerly taken advan- 

 tage of and improved upon by the animal in whom they 



