88 DISCRIMINATIONS CHAP. 



atrophied by long - continued disuse. 

 This is a familiar fact. What can be 

 more easy than to translate this general 

 fact into Darwinese phraseology ? 

 Nature has a special favour for organs 

 put to use. She strengthens them 

 more and more by a process falling 

 well under the idea of Natural Selection. 

 In like manner, Nature deals unfavour- 

 ably with organs which are allowed to be 

 idle and inactive. She places them at 

 a disadvantage, and they tend to perish. 

 The truth is, that the phrase Natural 

 Selection and the group of ideas which 

 hide under it is so elastic that there is 

 nothing in heaven or on earth that by 

 a little ingenuity may not be brought 

 under its pretended explanation. Darwin 

 in 1859-60 wondered " how variously" 

 his phrase had been "misunderstood." 

 The explanation is simple : it was because 

 of those vague and loose analogies which 



