And habits produce a tendency to variation in the
offspring (no matter how slight such variation may be), and unless
you can define the possible limit of such variation during an
infinite series of generations, unless you can show that there is a
limit, and that Darwin's theory over-steps it, you have no right to
reject his conclusions. As for the objections to the theory, Darwin
has treated them with admirable candour, and our time is too brief to
enter into them here. My recommendation to you is that you should
read the book again.
C. Thank you, but for my own part I confess to caring very little
whether my millionth ancestor was a gorilla or no; and as Darwin's
book does not please me, I shall not trouble myself further about the
matter.
BARREL-ORGANS: [From the Press, 17 January, 1863.]
Dugald Stewart in his Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysics
says: "On reflecting on the repeated reproduction of ancient
paradoxes by modern authors one is almost tempted to suppose that
human invention is limited, like a barrel-organ, to a specific number
of tunes."
It would be a very amusing and instructive task for a man of reading
and reflection to note down the instances he meets with of these old
tunes coming up again and again in regular succession with hardly any
change of note, and with all the old hitches and involuntary squeaks
that the barrel-organ had played in days gone by.
