It is vain then to contend that
the ease and certainty with which an action is performed, even though it
may have now become matter of such fixed habit that it cannot be suddenly
and seriously modified without rendering the whole performance abortive,
is any argument against that action having been an achievement of design
and reason in respect of each one of the steps that have led to it; and
if in respect of each one of the steps then as regards the entire action;
for we see our own most reasoned actions become no less easy, unerring,
automatic, and unconscious, than the actions which we call instinctive
when they have been repeated a sufficient number of times.

* * * * *

If the foregoing be granted, and it be admitted that the unconsciousness
and seeming automatism with which any action may be performed is no bar
to its having a foundation in memory, reason, and at one time consciously
recognised effort--and this I believe to be the chief addition which I
have ventured to make to the theory of Buffon and Dr. Erasmus Darwin--then
the wideness of the difference between the Darwinism of eighty years ago
and the Darwinism of to-day becomes immediately apparent, and it also
becomes apparent, how important and interesting is the issue which is
raised between them.

According to the older Darwinism the lungs are just as purposive as the
corkscrew. They, no less than the corkscrew, are a piece of mechanism
designed and gradually improved upon and perfected by an intelligent
creature for the gratification of its own needs. True there are many
important differences between mechanism which is part of the body, and
mechanism which is no such part, but the differences are such as do not
affect the fact that in each case the result, whether, for example, lungs
or corkscrew, is due to desire, invention, and design.

And now I will ask one more question, which may seem, perhaps, to have
but little importance, but which I find personally interesting. I have
been told by a reviewer, of whom upon the whole I have little reason to
complain, that the theory I put forward in "Life and Habit," and which I
am now again insisting on, is pessimism--pure and simple. I have a very
vague idea what pessimism means, but I should be sorry to believe that I
am a pessimist. Which, I would ask, is the pessimist? He who sees love
of beauty, design, steadfastness of purpose, intelligence, courage, and
every quality to which success has assign