DARWIN AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 259 



its untruth can, as we think, be proved, and his or our own in- 

 ability to explain a few isolated facts consistent with his views 

 would simply prove his and our ignorance of the true explana- 

 tion. But although unable to give any certainly true explana- 

 tion of the above phenomena, it is possible to suggest explana- 

 tions perhaps as plausible as the Darwinian theory, and though 

 the fresh suggestions may very probably not be correct, they 

 may serve to show that at least more than one conceivable ex- 

 planation may be given. 



It is a familiar fact that certain complexions go with certain 

 temperaments, that roughly something of a man's character may 

 be told from the shape of his head, his nose, or perhaps from 

 most parts of his body. We find certain colours almost always 

 accompanying certain forms and tempers of horses. There is a 

 connexion between the shape of the hand and the foot, and so 

 forth. No horse has the head of a cart-horse and the hind- 

 quarters of a racer ; so that, in general, if we know the shape of 

 most parts of a man or horse, we can make a good guess at the 

 probable shape of the remainder. All this shows that there is 

 a certain correlation of parts, leading us to expect that when the 

 heads of two birds are very much alike, their feet will not be 

 very different. From the assumption of a limited number of 

 possible combinations or animals, it would naturally follow that 

 the combination of elements producing a bird having a head 

 very similar to that of a goose, could not fail to produce a foot 

 also somewhat similar. According to this view, we might expect 

 most animals to have a good many superfluities of a minor kind, 

 resulting necessarily from the combination required to produce 

 the essential or important organs. Surely, then, it is not very 

 strange that an animal intermediate by birth between a horse 

 and ass should resemble a quagga, which results from a combina- 

 tion intermediate between the horse and ass combination. The 

 quagga is in general appearance intermediate between the horse 

 and ass, therefore, d priori, we may expect that in general 

 appearance a hybrid between the horse and the ass will resemble 

 the quagga, and if in general appearance it does resemble a 

 quagga, we may expect that owing to the correlation of parts 

 it will resemble the quagga in some special particulars. It is 

 difficult to suppose that every stripe on a zebra or quagga, or 



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