No plant or animal, then, according to our view, would be able to
conceive more than a very slight improvement on its organisation at a
given time, so clearly as to make the efforts towards it that would
result in growth of the required modification; nor would these efforts be
made with any far-sighted perception of what next and next and after, but
only of what next; while many of the happiest thoughts would come like
all other happy thoughts--thoughtlessly; by a chain of reasoning too
swift and subtle for conscious analysis by the individual. Some of these
modifications would be noticeable, but the majority would involve no more
noticeable difference that can be detected between the length of the
shortest day, and that of the shortest but one.
Thus a bird whose toes were not webbed, but who had under force of
circumstances little by little in the course of many generations learned
to swim, either from having lived near a lake, and having learnt the art
owing to its fishing habits, or from wading about in shallow pools by the
sea-side at low water and finding itself sometimes a little out of its
depth and just managing to scramble over the intermediate yard or so
between it and safety--such a bird did not probably conceive the idea of
swimming on the water and set itself to learn to do so, and then conceive
the idea of webbed feet and set itself to get webbed feet.
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