128 DARWINISM 



variation is not essential. All animals in a state of nature 

 are kept, by the constant struggle for existence and the 

 survival of the fittest, in such a state of perfect health and 

 usually superabundant vigour, that in all ordinary circumstances 

 they possess a surplus power in every important organ — a 

 surplus only drawn upon in cases of the direst necessity when 

 their very existence is at stake. It follows, therefore, that 

 any additional power given to one of the component parts of 

 an organ must be useful — an increase, for example, either in 

 the wing muscles or in the form or length of the wing might give 

 some increased powers of flight ; and thus alternate variations — 

 in one generation in the muscles, in another generation in the 

 wing itself — might be as effective in permanently improving the 

 powers of flight as coincident variations at longer intervals. 

 On either supposition, however, this objection appears to have 

 little weight if we take into consideration the large amount of 

 coincident variability that has been shown to exist. 



The Beginnings of Important Organs. 



We now come to an objection which has perhaps been 

 more frequently urged than any other, and which Darwin 

 himself felt to have much weight — the first beginnings of im- 

 portant organs, such, for example, as wings, eyes, mammary 

 glands, and numerous other structures. It is urged, that it 

 is almost impossible to conceive how the first rudiments of 

 these could have been of any use, and, if not of use they could 

 not have been preserved and further developed by natural 

 selection. 



Now, the first remark to be made on objections of this 

 nature is, that they are really outside the question of the 

 origin of all existing species from allied species not very far 

 removed from them, which is all that Darwin undertook to 

 prove by means of his theory. Organs and structures such as 

 those above mentioned all date back to a very remote past, 

 when the world and its inhabitants were both very different 

 from what they are now. To ask of a new theory that it 

 shall reveal to us exactly what took place in remote geological 

 epochs, and how it took place, is unreasonable. The most 

 that should be asked is, that some probable or possible mode of 

 origination should be pointed out in some at least of these 



