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while in reality you will say it is plain that it is nothing but the 

 working of the creature itself. In other words, unless some at 

 least of the offspring inherit any chance advantages, nothing can 

 come of them, viz., that advantages cannot be inherited unless 

 they be inherited. This I consider a weighty and powerful 

 argument, and not a most sapless piece of scribblement. 



I believe that "non-inheritance of any character is, in fact, the 

 same thing as reversion to the character of the grand-parents or 

 remote ancestors, and no doubt this tendency to reversion may 

 often have checked or prevented the action of Natural Selection." 

 I hear you say, " No doubt at all about it !" Don't talk to me 

 in that way. I don't care what you say, I must stand by my 

 theory, though it leaves me in the lurch. I know what I know. 



I believe that " it inevitably follows that as new species are 

 formed through Natural Selection, others will become scarce or 

 finally extinct." I can't deny that you and all other animals seem 

 to continue as you and they were since the day you tell me they 

 were created, and that elephants, horses, lions, tigers, and all the 

 rest do not change into one another, nor can I point to a single 

 one in the process of changing. You may laugh at me when I 

 say that for all that they do, but it is no laughing matter for me 

 to have my theory overturned by facts, so all my vagaries must 

 be as they are. That's all. 



I believe that by Natural Selection a bustard becomes changed 

 into an ostrich, a horse into some other animal, and so on, 

 because I see that man has created many hereditary varieties, 

 such as the different kinds of dogs, and though these are only 

 varieties, as is proved by their breeding together, their nature 

 not being changed but having a tendency of reversion, I am 

 determined not to give up my notion, groundless as this shows 

 it to be. 



I believe that man ".creates" these varieties, but I cannot allow 

 any other creator but that of my own creating. I have made up 

 my mind about it. 



I believe that the ''action of Natural Selection will depend on 

 some of the inhabitants becoming sloivly modified. Nothing can be 

 effected unless favourable variations occur, and variation itself is 



