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ewe should be able to recognise her lambs from all the rest
of the flock. It would be a disastrous thing for us if there
were no distinctive marks of individuality—if we could
say of one another what the dramatist makes the mad
Octavian say of his faithful friend Roque :—
“ Roque:
Signor ! do you not remember my countenance ? ”
“ Oct. :
No. Providence has slubbered it in haste,
’Tis one of her unmeaning compositions
She manufactures when she makes a gross :
She’ll form a million such—and all alike—
Then send them forth, ashamed of her own work,
And set no mark upon them. Get thee gone ! ”—(Colman.)
We know that the contrary is the fact and that
“The Almighty Maker has throughout
Discriminated each from each, by strokes
And touches of His hand, with so much art
Diversified, that two were never found
Twins at all points.”
Mr. Darwin contends that the transforming influence of
changed conditions do not produce useful results.
“ If, for instance, a plant had to be modified so as to become fitted
to inhabit a humid instead of an arid station, we have no reason to
believe that variations of the right kind would occur more frequently
if the parent-plant inhabited a station a little more humid than usual.
Whether the station was unusually dry or humid, variations adapt
ing the plant in a slight degree for directly opposite habits of life
would occasionally arise, as we have reason to believe from what
we know in other cases.”—(The Variation, vol. ii., pp. 2Q0-1.)
This dictum is, however, contradicted in some cases by
the palpable effects of transforming influence. When the
cat loses its fur, and the sheep loses its wool, in hot
countries, the usefulness of the change must be obvious
to all. When, under new conditions, or animated by new