et Imbecillitate Danvmiana. 29 



only the spider can handle its own threads) ; 

 while still others deal suitably with the prey 

 craftily captured by the web. The whole 

 organisation lives by the mutual co-operation 

 of its several parts, each of which is as 

 absurd without the other as a key without 

 a lock, or a corkscrew without a bottle. 

 Take away one, and the others must die. 

 And how in the name of common sense 

 is it POSSIBLE for slight successive variations 

 to add up into a combination of which each 

 part presupposes the others * ? 



To this * deduction from phenomena] ne- 

 cessary and inevitable, Darwin's only possible 

 and wholly conjectural answer is an abuse 

 of scientific method : the hypothetical as- 



% Nothing would be easier than to expanft these instances 

 into a volume. But a vast accumulation of superfluous 

 facts adds nothing to the strength of a good argument, 

 though it may, and often does, browbeat a timid reader 

 into accepting a bad one by the material brutality of quan- 

 tity rather than quality. 



