The Humour of Homer and Other EssaysButler, Samuel
History
The Humour of Homer and Other Essays
Butler, Samuel
Essays; Greek wit and humor -- History and criticism; Homer -- Humor
Not so with Mr. Wallace, who was both more outspoken in the first
instance, and who has persevered along the path of Wallaceism just
as Mr. Darwin with greater sagacity was ever on the retreat from
Darwinism. Mr. Wallace's profounder faith led him in the outset to
place his theory in fuller daylight than Mr. Darwin was inclined to
do. Mr. Darwin just waved Lamarck aside, and said as little about
him as he could, while in his earlier editions Erasmus Darwin and
Buffon were not so much as named. Mr. Wallace, on the contrary, at
once raised the Lamarckian spectre, and declared it exorcized. He
said the Lamarckian hypothesis was "quite unnecessary." The giraffe
did not "acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of
the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this
purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its
antitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh
range of pasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked
companions, and on the first scarcity of food were thus enabled to
outlive them." {260}
"Which occurred" is evidently "which happened to occur" by some
chance of accident unconnected with use and disuse. The word
"accident" is never used, but Mr. Wallace must be credited with this
instance of a desire to give his readers a chance of perceiving that
according to his distinctive feature evolution is an affair of luck,
rather than of cunning. Whether his readers actually did understand
this as clearly as Mr. Wallace doubtless desired that they should,
and whether greater development at this point would not have helped
them to fuller apprehension, we need not now inquire. What was
gained in distinctness might have been lost in distinctiveness, and
after all he did technically put us upon our guard.
Nevertheless, he too at a pinch takes refuge in Lamarckism. In
relation to the manner in which the eyes of soles, turbots, and
other flat-fish travel round the head so as to become in the end
unsymmetrically placed, he says:--
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