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preservation — had, for example, the palmation of the toes occurred in a bird 
living partly in the water, or the baldness in another to whom head-feathers 
were inconvenient (and the like phenomenon has been observed to be here- 
ditary in doves) ; or, again, had similar changes taken place, only in an oppo- 
site direction— say the strengthening of the lungs instead of their weakening, 
or the addition of pigment to eyes formerly devoid of it, instead of its with- 
drawal from eyes formerly possessed of it ; had, especially, owing to the 
favourable influence of such variations, and the consequent multiplication of 
their possession, some of the successive generations been born of parents 
both of whom varied in the same manner ; — had this been so, we cannot 
doubt but that races of living beings would have come into existence differing 
most markedly in structure from their progenitors, and forming species which 
the anti-Darwinian naturalist would ridicule the idea of ever having sprung 
from the source they did. 
Of course, if Mr. Warington may be allowed to vary the 
facts of nature as he pleases, and also to select them, as well 
as to vary his arguments irrespective of his own premises and 
logic, there can be no doubt he may establish Darwinism or 
any other fanciful hypothesis. 
But now I must pass rapidly on, and notice a few points 
only, to show that I have not overlooked them, though I 
cannot now possibly notice all. As to “ use and disuse,'' the 
Upland goose alone refutes Mr. Darwin and Lamarck. As to 
Mr. Warington's difficulty with respect to Pliny's evergreen 
plane-tree, it is explained, I think, in a word : — “ The earth 
brings forth," as God commanded ; and if the appropriate soil 
is wanting for what has been once produced, no doubt a 
species or variety of plant may die out or be greatly modified. 
This also, I think, affords the simple explanation why a heavier 
crop of hay is obtained from mixed seed than from seed of a 
single kind; and it teaches why the rotation of crops in 
farming is beneficial. It also refutes the endless prolificacy 
theory of individual forms. They would soon exhaust the soil 
that suits them, and then die. 
As regards all Mr. Warington's instances of sailors' long 
sight and students' short sight, of right-hand use and long- 
legged runners, down even to the aldermanic development of 
the stomach, he surely knows that no long-sight or short-sight 
race has been thus produced ; that throughout the world all 
races are generally right-handed ; and I don't believe he can 
prove that all the swiftest runners have the longest legs ; 
while it is notorious that all the feasts of the Corporation of 
London have not served to produce such a pot-bellied race as 
the miserable, half-starved Bushmen in South Africa ! 
I grant, freely, that there are variations of the hind Mr. 
Darwin appeals to. I deny that such variations are either in 
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