MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. 177 



modifications have arisen — that is to say, he has made 

 us think we know the whole road, though he has 

 almost ostentatiously blindfolded us at every step of 

 the journey. But to the end of time, if the question be 

 asked, " Who taught people to believe in evolution ? " 

 there can only be one answer— that it was Mr. Darwin. 



Mr. Mivart urges with much force the difficulty of 

 starting any modification on which " natural selection " 

 is to work, and of getting a creature to vary in any defi- 

 nite direction. Thus, after quoting from Mr. Wallace 

 some of the wonderful cases of "mimicry" which are to 

 be found among insects, he writes : — 



" Now, let us suppose that the ancestors of these various 

 animals were all destitute of the very special protection 

 they at present possess, as on the Darwinian hypothesis 

 we must do. Let it be also conceded that small devia- 

 tions from the antecedent colouring or form would tend 

 to make some of their ancestors escape destruction, by 

 causing them more or less frequently to be passed over 

 or mistaken by their persecutors. Yet the deviation 

 must, as the event has shown, in each case, be in some 

 definite direction, whether it be towards some other 

 animal or plant, or towards some dead or inorganic 

 matter. But as, according to Mr. Darwin's theory, there 

 is a constant tendency to indefinite variation, and as the 

 minute incipient variations will be in all directions, they 

 must tend to neutralise each other, and at first to form 

 such unstable modifications, that it is difficult, if not 

 impossible, to see how such indefinite modifications of 



