and on the Origin of Species. 307 



Some of these steps do actually occur in the Melipona domestica 

 and other bees; and the immense quantity of honey consumed 

 by the hive-bee to make a small quantity of wax, as well as its 

 curious habit of cutting down the walls of its cells to a uniform 

 thickness, are certainly very strong arguments in favour of this 

 view. 



Exactly the same arguments will apply to the origin, step by 

 step, of the lozenge-formed planes forming the pyramidal base 

 of the cell as to the hexagonal form of its wall ; for these planes 

 are the simple result of gnawing away the superfluous wax in 

 the angles between the alternate spherical bases of the opposite 

 layer of cells ; and when this wax is so much gnawed away as to 

 reduce all the walls of the cells to an equal thickness, the true 

 geometrical figure which we see is the necessary result. (Origin 

 of Species, p. 247.) Itis evident, therefore, that all the minute 

 calculations of geometers respecting the amount of saving in 

 this pyramidal base over Q.flat base to the cell is altogether be- 

 side the question, because a flat base could not arise out of 

 spherical alternate bases in contact, by any such simple succes- 

 sive steps as are shown to result in the existing form. 



On the question of the "origin of species ^^ Mr. Haughton 

 enlarges considerably ; but his chief arguments are reduced to 

 the setting-up of "three unwarrantable assumptions," which he 

 imputes to the Lamarckians and Darwinians, and then, to use 

 his own words, " brings to the ground like a child's house of 

 cards." The first of these is " the indefinite variation of species 

 continuously in the one direction." Now this is certainly never 

 assumed by Mr. Darwin, whose argument is mainly grounded 

 on the fact that variations occur in every direction. This is so 

 obvious that it hardly needs insisting on. In every large family 

 there is almost always one child taller, one darker, one thinner 

 than the rest; one will have a larger nose, another a larger eye: 

 they vary morally as well ; some are more poetical, others more 

 morose; one has a genius for numbers, another for painting. 

 It is the same in animals : the puppies, or kittens, or rabbits of 

 one litter differ in many ways from each other — in colour, in 

 size, in disposition ; so that, though they do not " vary con- 

 tinuously in one direction," they do vary continuously in many 

 directions ; and thus there is always material for natural selec- 

 tion to act upon in some direction that may be advantageous. 



In his remarks upon this "unwarrantable assumption" 

 (which is altogether his own), Mr. Haughton has the following 

 passage : — " In the writings of Darwin there is this singular in- 

 consistency, that, while he shows the utmost effects of human 

 breeding on domestic animals to be capable of production in ten 

 or twenty years, he denies the right of his adversaries to appeal 



