48 THE DARWINIAN THEORY 



include a moth, several flies, and many beetles. Now 

 these are the descendants of winged insects, which 

 must have reached the island by flying, and gradually 

 lost the power of flight, as in the insects of Madeira. 



The importance of small variations. — We are apt 

 to overlook the importance that slight variations 

 may have, which is well shown in the artificial 

 breeding of animals. So it is with human affairs, 

 where important points, such as the fate of a Ministry, 

 or even the determination of peace or war between 

 two countries, often depends on side issues. In trade, 

 accidental variations may determine success by at- 

 tracting attention. The success of a novel, play or 

 oratorio is often impossible to predict, and often 

 depends on a mere caprice. Change for the mere 

 sake of change may involve the misery or even 

 death of thousands, and cause alternating periods of 

 great prosperity and greater distress. This is well 

 seen in the changes of fashion in dress, which in the 

 case of the feathers for ladies' hats, or a particular 

 kind of fur, may mean destruction and wholesale 

 slaughter, even to extermination, of particular animals. 



Inheritance. — The more favoured ones will not 

 only survive, but will tend to hand down to their 

 descendants their special advantages ; and of these 

 descendants some will have these special peculiarities 

 in a less marked degree than their parents, some 

 equally and others more strongly marked. The 

 latter will in the long run survive, if the further 

 development of this special advantage confers further 

 benefit on the individual. The whole theory of the 

 breeding of animals depends on inheritance. For 



