LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 255 



ductions. It is rather hard to say what these words 

 imply; they may mean anything from a baby to an 

 apple dumpling, but if they imply that Lamarck drew 

 inspirations from the gradual development of the 

 mechanical inventions of man, and from the progress 

 of man's ideas, I would say that of all sources this 

 would seem to be the safest and most fertile from 

 which to draw. 



Plants and animals under domestication are indeed 

 a suggestive field for study, but machines are the 

 manner in which man is varying at this moment. We 

 know how our own minds work, and how our mechani- 

 cal organisations — for, in all sober seriousness, this is 

 what it comes to — have progressed hand in hand with 

 our desires; sometimes the power a little ahead, and 

 sometimes the desire; sometimes both combining to 

 form an organ with almost infinite capacity for varia- 

 tion, and sometimes comparatively early reaching the 

 limit of utmost development in respect of any new 

 conception, and accordingly coming to a full stop ; 

 sometimes making leaps and bounds, and sometimes 

 advancing sluggishly. Here we are behind the scenes, 

 and can see how the whole thing works. We have 

 man, the very animal which we can best understand, 

 caught in the very act of variation, through his own 

 needs, and not through the needs of others ; the whole 

 process is a natural one ; the varying of a creature as 

 much in a wild state as the ants and butterflies are 

 wild. There is less occasion here for the continual 

 " might be " and " may be," which we are compelled to 

 put up with when dealing with plants and animals, of the 



