MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. • 281 



report progress, owing to the constant liability of the 

 creature which has varied favourably, to play the part 

 of Penelope and undo its work, by varying in some one 

 of the infinite number of other directions which are 

 open to it — all of which, except this one, tend to destroy 

 the resemblance, and yet may be in some other respect 

 even more advantageous to the creature, and so tend to 

 its preservation. Moreover, here, too, I think (though I 

 cannot be sure), we have a recurrence of the original 

 fallacy in the words — " If we were to account for the 

 above resemblances, independently of 'natural selec- 

 tion/ through mere fluctuating variability." Surely Mr. 

 Darwin does, after all, " account for the resemblances 

 through mere fluctuating variability," for " natural selec- 

 tion " does not account for one single variation in the 

 whole list of them from first to last, other than in- 

 directly, as shewn in the preceding chapter. 



It is impossible for me to continue this subject fur- 

 ther ; but I would beg the reader to refer to other para- 

 graphs in the neighbourhood of the one just quoted, in 

 which he may — though I do not think he will — see reason 

 to think that I should have given Mr. Darwin's answer 

 more fully. I do not quote Mr. Darwin's next para- 

 graph, inasmuch as I see no great difficulty about " the 

 last touches of perfection in mimicry," provided Mr. 

 Darwin's theory will account for any mimicry at all. 

 If it could do this, it might as well do more ; but a strong 

 impression is left on my mind, that without the help of 

 something over and above the power to vary, which / <L 

 should give a definite aim to variations, all the " natural 

 selection " in the world would not have prevented stag- 



