120 Dynamic Theory. 



numbers of the ftycrs and preserving those having defective wings, or 

 disinclination to fly and so producing species with reduced and useless 

 wings. On the other hand, those beetles which must fly in order to live, 

 as those feeding on flowers, have been improved in their wings, since in 

 their case those having the feeblest wings have been blown out to sea 

 and perished and the strongest selected to live. ( Selection of Species, 

 124.) 



It is difficult in this as in most cases to determine how much is due to 

 the direct action of dynamical causes and how much to their indirect 

 agency thi'ough habit use or disuse. The wind would cause the beetles 

 to disuse their wings as much as they could. The ground feeding 

 beetles could live without using wings at all, and as the wind made their 

 wings a burden, disuse would in time reduce them to rudiments, selec- 

 tion picking out for survival those most reduced. 



Amongst the human races the savage and the civilized are largely in 

 each other's way usually to the great grief of the former. The com- 

 petition of individuals in civil life is largely compensated by cooperation 

 and mutual help in procuring what they all want. But when a differ- 

 entiation takes place which destroys cooperation without destroying 

 competition, the result must be a struggle in which the weaker party 

 will perish. The only ways in which inferior races have managed to 

 live upon the earth are either to become useful to the superior, to amal- 

 gamate with them and thus become superior or to get entirely out of 

 their way. For examples in point consult the history of the Magyars, 

 the Basques, Laps, Africans, &c. We may reasonably suppose that 

 many "connecting links" have been disposed of by superior races, and 

 made to entirely disappear either by annihilation or amalgamation or a 

 combination of the two. 



The theory of selection is curiously confirmed by facts in relation to 

 what is called mimicry, and the protection which various animals derive 

 from their color or form. As a general thing, those that are the most 

 gay, attractive or conspicuous are provided with some means of defense, 

 as a crustaceous shell or armor, a sting, an offensive odor, as in many in- 

 sects, the skunk, &c. Those that are not conspicuous and depend upon 

 that circumstance in whole or in large part for their security are as a 

 rule not provided with other means of defense. The theory of this is, of 

 course, that not being seen they have not been attacked and not there- 

 fore defending themselves, no weapons of defense have been differ- 

 entiated and selected in their case, while those that have succumbed to 

 such pursuit as they may have been exposed to have been the most con- 

 spicuous of their tribe, the least conspicuous being thus constantly se- 

 lected for survival. Thus the constant tendency is for animals as a 

 part or perhaps the whole of their defense to become colored like the 



