21 



of colour in one kind, green, blue, red, orange, yellow, " mille traJien* 

 niriox (irtccrxo sole colores" Yes, you may ask me, but your question 

 reminds me of the poet and his suggestion of the reply to " calling 

 spirits from the vasty deep," "will they come when you do call them V" 

 u Ay, there's the rub !" 



I believe that natural selection has " given the proper colour to 

 grouse " and other birds and insects for " preserving them from 

 danger," but I do not not tell you how they did before they " selected " 

 their present colour. I cannot condescend to answer any such questions. 



I believe that their colours were produced by the " aggregate 

 action and production of the sequence of events," or, in plain English, 

 that we see them as they are, and that is the reason of their being 

 so. What would you have more ? You may ask me, as I hold that 

 natural selection is vastly superior to any art or skill of man, whether 

 a watch or a steam engine is the " result of the aggregate action and 

 product of the sequence of events?" I am quite above replying to the 

 enquiry. 



I "see no greater difficulty" in natural selection giving wings to 

 seeds than in a planter improving his plants, but I cannot tell you 

 how they come to be. It is enough for me to have them ready-to-be- 

 made for my theory. 



I believe that the ostrich came from a bustard, by using its legs 

 more and its wings less, until it got to have no wings to fly with. I 

 do not pretend to tell you what it has gained by this loss. You may 

 say that wings would be very useful to it, hunted as it is. That I 

 cannot help. My theory requires it to be as it is. Whatever is, is. 

 That you cannot dispute. 



I believe that bustards still exist, though elsewhere I have said 

 that in all such cases of improvement by natural selection the original 

 species is "exterminated." You may ask me to reconcile those two 

 contradictory statements. It is no business of mine to do so. You 

 must take things as you find them, for me. 



I believe that a wingless bird comes by degrees, though we have 

 never seen the '" transitional grade," to be the first to " float along the 

 surface of the sea," and " ultimately to rise from its surface and glide 

 through the air." I hope you do not mean to doubt this, for I myself 

 am a standing proof of a far greater flight of fancy than even this. 



I believe that all this is much more scientific than the opinions 

 to the contrary held by such men as Cuvier and Owen, Agassiz and 

 Phillips, Jones and Sedgwick. They never knew how to interpret 

 Nature as I do. 



I believe that a " well-developed tail " in an aquatic animal might 

 " come to be worked in for all sorts of purposes " in a land animal. 

 But how it came to be formed in the aquatic animal, this deponent 

 sayeth not. Natural selection being an exceedingly slow process, these 

 aquatic animals must have been for thousands of millions of years 

 without any tail at all to begin with. No doubt, in time, they began 

 to be formed, or rather, to form themselves. It is true that a fish 

 without a tail must have been a queer sort of a creature, an " odd 

 fish," perhaps you will say. You may say what you like, but " all is 

 fish that comes to my net." So it was before " their tails were formed," 

 so it was in those " good old times," and so it came to pass that in due 

 time the tail of a shark got to be '' worked in " for the tail of a cow, 

 and that of an herring for that of an ass. All a priori to po.th'-i'iari. 

 Ci'i'ditc jtoxfcri ! 



I believe that "it certainly is not true that the new organs appear 

 suddenly in any class ;" but if you had had a microscope of sufficiently 

 strong power, let me tell you, you would have discovered if only the 



