Page - 206 - in The Origin of Species

206 ORIGIN OF SPECIES innovation. Why, on the theory of Creation, should there be so much variety and so little real novelty? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in nature, be so commonly linked together by graduated steps? Why should not Nature take a sudden leap from structure to structure? On the theory of natural selection, we can clearly understand why she should not; for natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps. ORGANS OF LITTLE APPARENT IMPORTANCE, AS AFFECTED BY NATURAL SELECTION As natural selection acts by life and death,—^by the sur- vival of the fittest, and by the destruction of the less well- fitted individuals,—I have sometimes felt great difficulty in understanding the origin or formation of parts of little im- portance; almost as great, though of a very different kind, as in the case of the most perfect and complex organs. In the first place, we are much too ignorant in regard to the whole economy of any one organic being, to say what slight modifications would be of importance or not. In a former chapter I have given instances of very trifling char- acters, such as the down on fruit and the colour of its flesh, the colour of the skin and hair of quadrupeds, which, from being correlated with constitutional differences or from de- termining the attacks of insects, might assuredly be acted on by natural selection. The tail of the giraffe looks like an artificially constructed fly-flapper; and it seems at first in- credible that this could have been adapted for its present purpose by successive slight modifications, each better and better fitted, for so trifling an object as to drive away flies; yet we should pause before being too positive even in this case, for we know that the distribution and existence of cattle and other animals in South America absolutely depend on their power of resisting the attacks of insects : so that individuals which could by any means defend themselves from these small enemies, would be able to range into new