go Luck, or Cunning ? 
arrived at by long-continued improvement in the hands of 
an almost infinite succession of thieves ; but may not this 
inference be somewhat too hastily drawn ? Have we any 
right to assume that burglars work by means analogous 
to those employed by other people? If any thief happened 
to pick up any crowbar which happened to be ever such a 
little better suited to his purpose than the one he had been 
in the habit of using hitherto, he would at once seize and 
carefully preserve it. If it got worn out or broken he would 
begin searching for a crowbar as like as possible to the one 
that he had lost ; and when, with advancing skill, and in 
default of being able to find the exact thing he wanted, 
he took at length to making a jemmy for himself, he would 
imitate the latest and most perfect adaptation, which would 
thus be most likely to be preserved in the struggle of com- 
petitive forms. Let this process go on for countless genera- 
tions, among countless burglars of all nations, and may we 
not suppose that a jemmy would be in time arrived at, as 
superior to any that could have been designed as the effect 
of the Niagara Falls is superior to the puny efforts of the 
landscape gardener ? ” 
For the moment I will pass over the obvious retort that 
there is no sufficient parallelism between bodily organs and 
mechanical inventions to make a denial of design in the one 
involve in equity a denial of it in the other also, and that 
therefore the preceding paragraph has no force. A man is 
not bound to deny design in machines wherein it can be 
clearly seen because he denies it in living organs where at 
best it is a matter of inference. This retort is plausible, 
but in the course of the two next following chapters but 
one it will be shown to be without force ; for the moment, 
however, beyond thus calling attention to it, I must pass 
it by. 
I do not mean to say that Mr. Darwin ever wrote any- 
thing which made the utility of his contention as apparent 
as it is made by what I have above put into the mouth of 
