48 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



that the question is one of fact and of the more evident 

 deductions therefrom^ and should not be carried back 

 to those remote beginnings where the nature of the 

 facts is so purely a matter of conjecture and inference. 



No plant or animal, then, according to our view, 

 would be able to conceive more than a very slight im- 

 provement on its organization at a given time, so clearly 

 as to make the efforts towards it that would result in 

 growth of the required modification ; nor would these 

 efforts be made with any far-sighted perception of what 

 next and next and after, but only of what next; while 

 many of the happiest thoughts would come like all other 

 happy thoughts — thoughtlessly ; by a chain of reason- 

 ing too swift and subtle for conscious analysis by the in- 

 dividual, as will be more fully insisted on hereafter. 

 Some of these modifications would be noticeable, but the 

 majority would involve no more noticeable difference 

 than can be detected between the length of the shortest 

 day, and that of the shortest but one. 



Thus a bird whose toes were not webbed, but who 

 had under force of circumstances little by little in the 

 course of many generations learned to swim, either from 

 having lived near a lake, and having learnt the art 

 owing to its fishing habits, or from wading about in 

 shallow pools by the sea-side at low water, and finding 

 itself sometimes a little out of its depth and just 

 managing to scramble over the intermediate yard or so 

 between it and safety — such a bird did not probably 

 conceive the idea of swimming on the water and set 

 itself to learn to do so, and then conceive the idea of 

 webbed feet and set itself to get webbed feet. The 



