172 Luck, or Cunning ? 
parasite, with its relations to several distinct organic 
beings, by the effects of the external conditions, or of habit, 
or of the volition of the plant itself.” 
Doubtless it would be preposterous to refer the structure 
of either woodpecker or mistletoe to the single agency of 
any one of these three causes; but neither Lamarck nor 
any other writer on evolution has, so far as I know, even 
contemplated this ; the early evolutionists supposed organic 
modification to depend on the action and interaction of all 
three, and I venture to think that this will ere long be 
considered as, to say the least of it, not more preposterous 
than the assigning of the largely preponderating share in 
the production of such highly and variously correlated 
organisms as the mistletoe and woodpecker mainly to 
luck pure and simple, as is done by Mr. Charles Darwin’s 
theory. 
It will be observed that in the paragraph last quoted from, 
Mr. Darwin, more suo, is careful not to commit himself. All 
he has said is, that it would be preposterous to do something 
the preposterousness of which cannot be reasonably dis- 
puted ; the impression, however, is none the less effectually 
conveyed, that some one of the three assigned agencies, 
taken singly, was the only cause of modification ever yet 
proposed, if, indeed, any writer had even gone so far as this. 
We knew we did not know much about the matter ourselves, * 
and that Mr. Darwin was a naturalist of long and high 
standing ; we naturally, therefore, credited him with the 
same good faith as a writer that we knew in ourselves as 
readers ; it never so much as crossed our minds to suppose 
that the head which he was holding up all dripping before 
our eyes as that of a fool, was not that of a fool who had 
actually lived and written, but only of a figure of straw 
which had been dipped in a bucket of red paint. Naturally 
enough we concluded, since Mr. Darwin seemed to say so, 
that if his predecessors had nothing better to say for them- 
selves than this, it would not be worth while to trouble 
