84 DISCRIMINATIONS CHAP. 



path of variation has better stood the 

 test of thirty years' discussion, and 

 thirty years of closer observation ? Can 

 there be any doubt on this ? Year 

 after year, and decade after decade, 

 have passed away, and as the reign of 

 terror which is always established for 

 a time to protect opinions which have 

 become a fashion, has gradually abated, 

 it has become more and more clear that 

 mere accidental variations, and the mere 

 accidental fitting of these into external 

 conditions, can never account for the 

 definite progress of correlated adjust- 

 ments and of elaborate adaptations, 

 along certain lines, which are the most 

 prominent of all the characteristics of 

 organic development. It would be as 

 rational to account for the poem of the 

 Iliad, or for the play of Hamlet, by 

 supposing that the words and letters 

 were adjusted to the conceptions by 



