244 LIFE AND HABIT. 



for the simple reason that this lesson is one which it is 

 only beginning to learn. All I maintain is, that, give a 

 child as many generations of practice in opening oysters 

 as it has had in breathing or sucking, and it would on 

 being born, turn to the oyster-knife no less naturally 

 than to the breast. We observe that among certain 

 families of men there has been a tendency to vary in 

 the direction of the use and development of machinery ; 

 and that in a certain still smaller number of families, 

 there seems to be an almost infinitely great capacity for 

 varying and inventing still further, whether socially or 

 mechanically; while other families, and perhaps the 

 greater number, reach a certain point and stop ; but we 

 also observe that not even the most inventive races ever 

 see very far ahead. I suppose the progress of plants 

 and animals to be exactly analogous to this. 



Mr. Darwin has always maintained that the effects of 

 use and disuse are highly important in the develop- 

 ment of structure, and if, as he has said, habits are 

 sometimes inherited — then they should sometimes be 

 important also in the development of instinct, or habit. 

 But what does the development of an instinct or struc- 

 ture, or, indeed, any effect upon the organism produced 

 by " use and disuse," imply ? It implies an effect pro- 

 duced by a desire to do something for which the 

 ; organism was not originally well adapted or sufficient, 

 but for which it has come to be sufficient in conse- 

 quence of the desire. The wish has been father to the 

 power; but this again opens up the whole theory of 

 Lamarck, that the development of organs has been due 

 to the wants or desires of the animal in which the 



