Page - 97 - in The Origin of Species

NATURAL SELl'XTION 97 lected character in some peculiar and filling manner ; he feeds a long and a short beaked pigeon on the same food ; he does not exercise a long-backed or long-legged quadruped in any peculiar manner ; he exposes sheep with long and short wool to the same climate. He does not allow the most vigorous males to struggle for the females. He does not rigidly de- stroy all inferior animals, but protects during each varying season, as far as lies in his power, all his productions. He often begins his selection by some half-monstrous form ; or at least by some modification prominent enough to catch the eye or to be plainly useful to him. Under nature, the slight- est differences of structure or constitution may well turn the nicely-balanced scale in the struggle for life, and so be pre- served. How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man ! how short his time ! and consequently how poor will be his results, compared with those accumulated by Nature during whole geological periods? Can we wonder, then, that Na- ture's productions should be far "truer" in character than man's productions ; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship ? It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and add- ing up all that are good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improve- ment of each organic being in relation to its organic and in- organic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages, and then so imperfect is our view into long- past geological ages, that we see only that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were. In order that any great amount of modification should be effected in a species, a variety when once formed must again, perhaps after a long interval of time, vary or present indi- vidual differences of the same favourable nature as before ; and these must be again preserved, and so onwards step by step. Seeing that individual differences of the same kind perpetually recur, this can hardly be considered as an unwar- rantable assumption. But whether it is true, we can judge D—lie XI