iS2 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



with such minuteness of revision that it may be saiZ 

 no detail escaped him provided it was small enough ; 

 it is incredible that he should have allowed this para- 

 graph to remain from first to last unchanged (except 

 for the introduction of the words " by the Creator," 

 which are wanting in the first edition) if they did not 

 convey the conception he most wished his readers to 

 retain. Even if in his first edition he had failed to 

 see that he was abandoning in his last paragraph all 

 that it had been his ostensible object most especially 

 to support in the body of his book, he must have 

 become aware of it long before he revised the " Origin 

 of Species " for the last time ; still he never altered 

 it, and never put us on our guard. 



It was not Mr. Darwin's manner to put his reader 

 on hia guard ; we might as well expect Mr. Gladstone 

 to put us on our guard about the Irish land bills. Caveat 

 lector seems to have been his motto. Mr. Spencer, 

 in the articles already referred to, is at pains to show 

 that Mr. Darwin's • opinions in later life underwent a 

 change in the direction of laying greater stress on 

 functionally produced modifications, and points out 

 that in the sixth edition of the " Origin of Species " 

 Mr. Darwin says, " I think there can be no doubt that 

 use in our domestic animals has strengthened and 

 enlarged certain parts, and disuse diminished them ; " 

 whereas in his first edition he said, " I think there can be 

 little doubt " of this. Mr. Spencer also quotes a passage 

 from " The Descent of Man," in which Mr. Darwin 

 said that even in the first edition of the " Origin of 

 Species " he had attributed great effect to function, as 



