LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 269 



improvement in which, deductive and inductive methods 

 are, as it were, fused. Thus the effect, where we can 

 best watch its causes, seems mainly produced by a desire 

 for a definite object — in some cases a serious and sensible 

 desire, in others an idle one, in others, again, a mis- 

 taken one ; and sometimes by a blunder which, in the 

 hands of an otherwise able creature, has turned up 

 trumps. In wild animals and plants the divergences 

 have been accumulated, if they answered to the pro- 

 longed desires of the creature itself, and if these desires 

 were to its true ultimate good ; with plants or animals 

 under domestication they have been accumulated if they 

 answered a little to the original wishes of the creature, 

 and much, to the wishes of man. As long as man con- 

 tinued to like them, they would be advantageous to the 

 creature ; when he tired of them, they would be disad- 

 vantageous to it, and would accumulate no longer. 

 Surely the results produced in the adaptation of struc- 

 ture to need among many plants and insects are better 

 accounted for on this, which I suppose to be Lamarck's 

 view, namely, by supposing that what goes on amongst 

 ourselves has gone on amongst all creatures, than by 

 supposing that these adaptations are the results of per- 

 fectly blind and unintelligent variations. 



Let me give two examples of such adaptations, taken 

 from Mr. St. George Mivart's " Genesis of Species," to 

 which work I would wish particularly to call the 

 reader's attention. He should also read Mr. Darwin's 

 answers to Mr. Mivart (p. 176, "Natural Selection," ed. 

 1876, and onwards). 



Mr. Mivart writes : — 



