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but this imputation was cast by good folk who never tried, 

 or were too dull to understand either one hypothesis or the 

 other. Mr. Darwin never supported the theory of spon- 

 taneous generation, which was employed by Lamarck, nor 

 did he ever suppose that the variation of a species depended 

 upon the volition of the individual. He simply maintained 

 that new forms rose from pre-existing ones, from the cir- 

 cumstance that, in the ordinary struggle which every animal 

 has for life, those of any brood which had the greatest 

 physical powers (no matter in what direction those powers 

 lay) had the advantage ; and that, whilst the weaker members 

 were unable to obtain the conditions necessary to their exis- 

 tence, the stronger were enabled to live, and hence to 

 perpetuate, in intensified form, the peculiar qualities they 

 possessed. Sir Charles Lyell gives the following clear dis- 

 tinction between the two theories : ' Lamarck, when specu- 

 lating on the origin of the long neck of the giraffe, imagined 

 that quadruped to have stretched himself up, in order to 

 reach the boughs of lofty trees, until by continued efforts and 

 longing to reach higher, he obtained an elongated neck. Mr. 

 Darwin and Mr. Wallace simply suppose that, in a season 

 of scarcity, a longer-necked variety, having the advantage in 

 this respect over most of the herd, as being able to browse 

 on foliage out of their reach, survived them, and transmitted 

 its peculiarity of cervical conformation to its successors.' " 



