150 INITIATIVE IN EVOLUTION 



Here then there were marks left by a human hand at some date 

 or other and by means of some tool or other. I know one may not 

 reason by an analogy from inorganic to organic phenomena in which 

 the push and force of life is in full blast, and that inheritance in the 

 former is ruled out ; but, taking the metaphor seriously, you have 

 to account for the appearance of the ribbing of paper and the 

 mason's marks on the stone. To call them " by-products " or 

 " tool marks " or obiter facta, or Iry any suggestive name, does 

 not advance the reply to the question, " Whence came this great 

 multitude ? " If I were unwary enough to be here trying to attack 

 Selection and to respond to the invitation of the more learned 

 arachnida to walk into his parlour with a scheme of organic evolution 

 for him to demolish at his leisure, I should have to enter upon the 

 question of adaptation, specific difference and perhaps other great 

 disputed doctrines. But, knowing my own limits, and desiring 

 to keep to the self-imposed limits of the title of this book, I again 

 plead that I am here contending, as all through it, for the origin 

 of initial modifications by use and habit, and for nothing else. 

 No one who reads of the immense amount of research and learning 

 that are being carried on by the students of Mendelism and Muta- 

 tionism can fail to admire them. But, as I have remarked before, 

 these are systems of thought which in the main deal with characters 

 by distribution or "unpacking," as it is called. Such a process 

 of course leads to new characters by amphimixis, and no one of 

 whom I know denies it. Such work is concerned with fresh views 

 of the origin of species, but with lamentable cowardice, or humility, 

 I leave all that great sphere to those who are incomparably more 

 fit for it, and just seek to mind my own business. 



In subsequent chapters on modifications and their origin I 

 shall not need to repeat these observations. 



Some Chosen Examples of Palms and Soles. 



The facts then of a few selected examples of the palms and soles 

 of mammals are shortly these. 



A heavy, burrowing animal, the earth wolf of the Cape, has a 

 very smooth, hard epidermis covering its foot-pads and is thus a 

 generalised structure which I have found in no other animal. 



The common mole which uses its broad strong fore-feet like 

 a pair of spades, and depends chiefly for discrimination of its habitat 

 on the delicate sensory nerve-endings of its snout, has a hard nodular 

 skin which is much less developed on the hind feet than the fore 

 feet, the latter being less active tools. It has no papillary ridges, 

 in accordance with this fact, and is a very efficient miner that never 



