Dr. Russel Wallace's Law. 149 



has called into play this counter-balancing instinct in 

 some few species and not at all in some others. If 

 they will satisfactorily answer that, then we shall 

 heartily thank them : till then we shall take leave to 

 say, that so far as they follow their master, they but 

 make " confusion worse confounded," by assuming 

 certain things, and then, on the ground of these false 

 and most groundless and ignorant assumptions — 

 speaking categorically for Nature in her doings or not- 

 doings. 



And how does Dr. Russel Wallace reconcile this 

 with his law, that useful variations tend to increase, 

 and useless or hurtful to diminish ? 



XIX. 



The assumption, moreover, that parasitic deposits 

 were so rare that it was not worth while for Mother 

 Nature to generate a counteracting instinct to defeat 

 them, is fully met and upturned by the facts we have 

 just dwelt on ; and, besides that, the mystery here, 

 by Romanes' suggestion, is only deepened : for, if 

 Mother Nature has not deemed it worth while to 

 bring in any counteracting instinct to defeat such 

 parasitism, then she seems just here to have gone a 

 shade too far in the direction of " survival of the 

 fittest " — if fittest is indeed to mean anything else 

 than " survival of those that survive." " Fittest ! " 

 How are you to discriminate and justify such pro- 

 cedure here on your own ground ? Goethe put it 

 clearly from his point of view : " Nature does not 

 appear to be very scrupulous. She has a good fund 



