84 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



largely a matter of accident. Many a well-equipped indi- 

 vidual will die, while many another, even though handi- 

 capped by decidedly unfavourable characters, will continue 

 to live and produce offspring because of some specially 

 favourable conditions. Nothing could seem to be more 

 decidedly disadvantageous than a broken leg, and, if the 

 principle of elimination of the unfit were rigid, broken-legged 

 individuals should be speedily destroyed. But it is quite 

 common to find animals with broken legs or arms which 

 yet succeed in living perfectly well. They have repaired 

 their broken members by processes of bone growth, and have 

 been able to carry on their part in the struggle for life and 

 survive competition. I have found a frog with the whole 

 of both feet bitten off, and yet with the wounds healed, the 

 animal living without feet, and hence hardly able to swim, 

 but side by side in competition with other well-developed 

 animals. I have found a clam that in its young condition 

 had received a severe rent in one gill, through which, by 

 some twist the body had been thrust, giving rise to the 

 extraordinary condition of three gills on one side of the 

 body and one on the other, a truly monstrous abnormity. 

 But this clam had lived to maturity and produced eggs in 

 quantities equal to any other clam. 



"Now such instances simply show the complexity of the 

 conditions which determine survival. They indicate that 

 these animals were favoured in some respects sufficiently to 

 counteract the disadvantage of their mutilations. But the 

 fact that so many instances are found does show that single 

 characters do not always determine survival or elimination. 

 The question whether an individual survive is dependent 

 upon many factors, of which utility of various organs may 

 be one and accident another. What would seem more sure 

 from a logical standpoint, than that, in the intense struggle 

 for life due to numerous individuals seeking for food, a 

 frog who was unable to swim because of the loss of his 



