248 LIFE AND HABIT. 



performing the corresponding actions for man, on the 

 part of the greyhound and dray-horse. 



And I believe that this will be felt as reasonable by 

 the great majority of my readers. I believe that nine 

 fairly intelligent and observant men out of ten, if they 

 were asked which they thought most likely to have 

 been the main cause of the development of the various 

 phases either of structure or instinct ^ r hich we see 

 around us, namely — sense of need, or even whim, and 

 hence occasional discovery, helped by an occasional 

 piece of good luck, communicated, it may be, and gene- 

 rally adopted, long practised, remembered by offspring, 

 modified by changed surroundings, and accumulated in 

 the course of time — or, the accumulation of small 

 divergent, indefinite, and perfectly unintelligent varia- 

 tions, preserved through the survival of their possessor in 

 the struggle for existence, and hence in time leading to 

 wide differences from the original type — would answer 

 in favour of the former alternative ; and if for no other 

 cause yet for this — that in the human race, which we 

 are best able to watch, and between which and the 

 lower animals no difference in kind will, I think, be sup- 

 posed, but only in degree, we observe that progress must 

 I have an internal current setting in a definite direction, 

 but whither we know not for very long beforehand; 

 and that without such internal current there is stagna- 

 tion. Our own progress — or variation — is due not to 

 small, fortuitous inventions or modifications which have 

 enabled their fortunate possessors to survive in times 

 of difficulty, not, in fact, to strokes of luck (though 

 these, of course, have had some effect — but not more, 



