1 76 Note. 



the struggle for existence would select, if it could select 

 anything ? " 



These considerations seem to me conclusive, at any 

 rate against the formations of complicated organs, like 

 the eye or the ear, by natural selection ; which would 

 seem to imply that exceptional and individual variations 

 not once, but tens or even hundreds of times, have become 

 common to a whole race. It would seem, then, that while 

 there are a vast number of characters (those apparently 

 useless) for which natural selection accounts with great 

 difficulty others, the complicated organs, for which it 

 cannot account at all there are only such as increased 

 strength, speed, hardiness, etc., for which it accounts at 

 all well, even granting indefinite variability ; and as to 

 these very characters, we find that they are not nearly as 

 widely diffused as we should expect to find supposing 

 animal types to be really indefinitely mutable, closely 

 allied races often differing most remarkably in these very 

 respects (see above, p. 123, et seq^). Against transmuta- 

 tion independently of natural selection, this line of argu- 

 ment tells even more strongly than against Darwinism 

 proper ; for then, instead of a sport possessing some 

 striking advantages over the parent form, and gradually 

 reabsorbed by force of numbers, we have a sport possess- 

 ing no particular advantages, and therefore certain to 

 be reabsorbed immediately. All these considerations 

 impress upon us more and more that the origin of 

 organic types is at present, and till we have some new 

 knowledge enabling us to attack the problem in quite 

 ^i different manner, an insoluble mystery. 



