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