STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 103 



to doubt his good faith, and his desire that we should 

 understand that with hina, as with Mr. Darwin, 

 variations are mainly accidental, not functional. Thus, 

 in his memorable paper communicated to the Linnean 

 Society in 1 8 5 8 he said, in a passage which I have 

 quoted in " Unconscious Memory " : — 



" The hypothesis of Lamarck — that progressive 

 changes in species have been produced by the attempts 

 of the animals to increase the development of their 

 own organs, and thus modify their structures and habits 

 — has been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers 

 on the subject of varieties and species ; . . . but the 

 view here developed renders such an hypothesis quite 

 unnecessary. , . . The powerful retractile talons of the 

 falcon and cat tribes have not been produced or in- 

 creased by the volition of those animals ; . . . neither 

 did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to 

 reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and con- 

 stantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but be- 

 cause any varieties which occurred among its antitypes 

 with a longer neck than usual at once secured afresh 

 range of pasture over the same ground as their shorter- 

 necked companions, and on the first scarcity of food were 

 thus enabled to outlive them " (italics in original).* 



" Which occurred " is obviously " which happened 

 to occur, by some chance or accident entirely uncon- 

 nected with use and disuse ; " and though the word 

 "accidental" is never used, there can be no doubt 

 about Mr. Wallace's desire to make the reader catch 



* Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Williams and 

 Norgate, 1858, p. 61. 



