the base of its toes. After
many generations it would become web-footed, if doing as above described
should have been found continuously convenient, so that the bird should
have continuously used the skin about its toes as much as possible in
this direction.

For there is a margin in every organic structure (and perhaps more than
we imagine in things inorganic also), which will admit of references, as
it were, side notes, and glosses upon the original text. It is on this
margin that we may err or wander--the greatness of a mistake depending
rather upon the extent of the departure from the original text, than on
the direction that the departure takes. A little error on the bad side
is more pardonable, and less likely to hurt the organism than a too great
departure upon the right one. This is a fundamental proposition in any
true system of ethics, the question what is too much or too sudden being
decided by much the same higgling as settles the price of butter in a
country market, and being as invisible as the link which connects the
last moment of desire with the first of power and performance, and with
the material result achieved.

It is on this margin that the fulcrum is to be found, whereby we obtain
the little purchase over our structure, that enables us to achieve great
results if we use it steadily, with judgment, and with neither too little
effort nor too much. It is by employing this that those who have a fancy
to move their ears or toes without moving other organs learn to do so.
There is a man at the Agricultural Hall now {153a} playing the violin
with his toes, and playing it, as I am told, sufficiently well. The eye
of the sailor, the wrist of the conjuror, the toe of the professional
medium, are all found capable of development to an astonishing degree,
even in a single lifetime; but in every case success has been attained by
the simple process of making the best of whatever power a man has had at
any given time, and by being on the look-out to take advantage of
accident, and even of misfortune. If a man would learn to paint, he must
not theorise concerning art, nor think much what he would do beforehand,
but he must do _something_--whatever under the circumstances will come
handiest and easiest to him; and he must do that something as well as he
can. This will presently open the door for something else, and a way
will show itself which no conceivable amount of searching would have
discovered, but