ts, such as reading,
and viewing objects closely as among watchmakers and engravers--or by
constitutional deterioration from indoor life, &c., acting upon a
constitutional liability of the eye to the "something like inflammation
of the coats, under which they yield" and so cause shortness of sight
by altering the spherical shape of the eye-ball. (2) Panmixia, or the
suspension of natural selection, together with altered habits, will
account for an increase of short-sight among the population generally.
(3) Long-sighted people could not work at watchmaking and engraving so
comfortably and advantageously as at other occupations, and hence would
be less likely to take to such callings.

LARGER HANDS OF LABOURERS' INFANTS.[49]

These are best explained as the result of natural selection and of the
diminution of the hand by sexual selection in the gentry. If the larger
hands of labourers' infants are really due to the inherited effects of
ancestral use, why does the development occur so early in life, instead
of only at a corresponding period, as is the rule? During the first few
years of its life, at least, the labourer's infant does no more work
than the gentleman's child. Why are not the effects of this disuse
inherited by the labourer's infant? If the enlargement of the infant's
hand illustrates the transference of a character gained later in life,
it is evident that the transference must take place in spite of the
inherited effects of disuse.

THICKENED SOLE IN INFANTS.

Darwin also attributes the thickened sole in infants, "long before
birth," to "the inherited effects of pressure during a long series of
generations."[50] But disuse should make the infant's sole _thin_, and
it is this thinness that should be inherited. If we suppose the
inheritance of the thickened soles of later life to be transferred to an
earlier period, we have the anomaly of the inherited effects of disuse
at that earlier period being overpowered by the untimely inheritance of
the effects of use at another. On the other hand, it is clear that
natural selection would favour thickened soles for walking on, and might
also promote an early development which would ensure their being ready
in good time for actual use; for variations in the direction of delay
would be cut off, while variations in the other direction would be
preserved. Anyhow, the mere transference of a character to an earlier
period is no proof of use-inheritance. The real quest