s each individual beetle which flew least, either
from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or
from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving, from not
being blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most
readily took to flight would oftenest have been blown to sea, and thus
destroyed." {27}

We should like to know, first, somewhere about how much disuse was able
to do after all, and moreover why, if it can do anything at all, it
should not be able to do all. Mr. Darwin says: "Any change in structure
and function which can be effected by small stages is within the power of
natural selection." "And why not," we ask, "within the power of use and
disuse?" Moreover, on a later page we find Mr. Darwin saying:--

"_It appears probable that disuse has been the main agent in rendering
organs rudimentary_ [italics mine]. It would at first lead by slow steps
to the more and more complete reduction of a part, until at last it has
become rudimentary--as in the case of the eyes of animals inhabiting dark
caverns, and of the wings of birds inhabiting oceanic islands, which have
seldom been forced by beasts of prey to take flight, and have ultimately
lost the power of flying. Again, an organ, useful under certain
conditions, might become injurious under others, _as with the wings of
beetles living on small and exposed islands_; and in this case natural
selection will have aided in reducing the organ, until it was rendered
harmless and rudimentary [italics mine]." {28}

So that just as an undefined amount of use and disuse was introduced on
the earlier page to supplement the effects of natural selection in
respect of the wings of beetles on small and exposed islands, we have
here an undefined amount of natural selection introduced to supplement
the effects of use and disuse in respect of the identical phenomena. In
the one passage we find that natural selection has been the main agent in
reducing the wings, though use and disuse have had an appreciable share
in the result; in the other, it is use and disuse that have been the main
agents, though an appreciable share in the result must be ascribed to
natural selection.

Besides, who has seen the uncles and aunts going away with the uniformity
that is necessary for Mr. Darwin's contention? We know that birds and
insects do often get blown out to sea and perish, but in order to
establish Mr. Darwin's position we want