N.B.-There ought somewhere to be a discussion from Lyell to show that external conditions do vary, or a note to Lyell's works (work?). Besides other difficulties in ii. Part, non-acclimatisation of plants. Difficulty when asked how did white and negro become altered from common intermediate stock: no facts. We do NOT know that species are immutable, on the contrary. What arguments against this theory, except our not perceiving every step, like the erosion of valleys1. beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." In the 2nd edition "by the Creator" is introduced after "originally breathed." 1 Compare the Origin, Ed. i. p. 481, vi. p. 659, "The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys excavated. by the slow action of the coast-waves." PART I CHAPTER I ON THE VARIATION OF ORGANIC BEINGS UNDER DOMESTICATION; AND ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION THE most favourable conditions for variation seem to be when organic beings are bred for many generations under domestication1: one may infer this from the simple fact of the vast number of races and breeds of almost every plant and animal, which has long been domesticated. Under certain conditions organic beings even during their individual lives become slightly altered from their usual form, size, or other characters: and many of the peculiarities thus acquired are transmitted to their offspring. Thus in animals, the size and vigour of body, fatness, period of maturity, habits of body or consensual movements, habits of mind and temper, are modified or acquired during the life of the individual2, and become inherited. There is reason to believe that when long exercise has given to certain muscles great development, or disuse has lessened them, that such development is also in 1 The cumulative effect of domestication is insisted on in the Origin, see e.g. Origin, Ed. i. p. 7, vi. p. 8. 2 This type of variation passes into what he describes as the direct effect of conditions. Since they are due to causes acting during the adult life of the organism they might be called individual variations, but he uses this term for congenital variations, e.g. the differences discoverable in plants raised from seeds of the same pod (Origin, Ed. i. p. 45, vi. p. 53). |