inherited instincts and inherited tools;” {157a} sometimes, again, it is surprising that the case of ants working by inherited instincts has not been brought as a demonstrative argument “against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit, as advanced by Lamarck.” {157b} Sometimes the winglessness of beetles inhabiting ocean islands is “mainly due to natural selection,” {157c} and though we might be tempted to ascribe the rudimentary condition of the wing to disuse, we are on no account to do so—­though disuse was probably to some extent “combined with” natural selection; at other times “it is probable that disuse has been the main means of rendering the wings of beetles living on small exposed islands” rudimentary. {157d} We may remark in passing that if disuse, as Mr. Darwin admits on this occasion, is the main agent in rendering an organ rudimentary, use should have been the main agent in rendering it the opposite of rudimentary—­that is to say, in bringing about its development.  The ostensible raison d’etre, however, of the “Origin of Species” is to maintain that this is not the case.

There is hardly an opinion on the subject of descent with modification which does not find support in some one passage or another of the “Origin of Species.”  If it were desired to show that there is no substantial difference between the doctrine of Erasmus Darwin and that of his grandson, it would be easy to make out a good case for this, in spite of Mr. Darwin’s calling his grandfather’s views “erroneous,” in the historical sketch prefixed to the later editions of the “Origin of Species.”  Passing over the passage already quoted on p. 62 of this book, in which Mr. Darwin declares “habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary”—­a sentence, by the way, than which none can be either more unfalteringly Lamarckian or less tainted with the vices of Mr. Darwin’s later style—­passing this over as having been written some twenty years before the “Origin of Species”—­the last paragraph of the “Origin of Species” itself is purely Lamarckian and Erasmus-Darwinian.  It declares the laws in accordance with which organic forms assumed their present shape to be—­“Growth with reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life and from use and disuse, &c.” {158a} Wherein does this differ from the confession of faith made by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck?  Where are the accidental fortuitous, spontaneous variations now?  And if they are not found important enough to demand mention in this peroration and stretto, as it were, of the whole matter, in which special prominence should be given to the special feature of the work, where ought they to be made important?