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identical starting-point, because all have the same predis 
position, they must be all alike, and there is no difference 
on which Natural Selection can act. If, through the force 
of circumstances, some predispositions are developed and 
others are not; and if, in consequence, the individuals 
whose predispositions are developed survive, and those 
whose predispositions are undeveloped—supposing such 
difference is possible to members of the same species 
existing under very similar outward conditions—even then 
the increment of power could not be inherited, and there 
would be no development of capacity in the race. 
Still the theory might be true, though it acted in oppo 
sition to evolution and to Natural Selection. But we may 
venture to ask whether the different assumptions contained 
in this theory can be established. It is difficult to under 
stand how, on this hypothesis, the predisposition first 
arose. We may take two cases, the predisposition to the 
long-established habit of a race which may be regarded as 
their second nature, and the newly-adopted custom of life 
which has arisen in connection with new conditions of life 
—the “ use which almost can change the stamp of nature.” 
The doctrine of organic evolution surely assumes that there 
must have been a time when the structure and the habits 
of a particular species have first come into existence. The 
logic of the theory requires that a habit must have arisen 
at a particular point. Before that time, therefore, there 
can have been no predisposition. In the case of new 
adaptations of old organs there is no predisposition till the 
new habit has been formed. If, as evolutionists believe, 
there was a time when the ancestors of the water-ouzel 
adopted an aquatic life, there could have been no pre 
disposition on the part of the organism to respond to 
the touch of water until after that habit had been acquired. 
The theory errs, therefore, on the threshold of the enquiry