Now this great mass of facts, of which a mere sketch has been here given, are fully accounted for by the "Law of Variation" as laid down at the commencement of this paper. Universal variability--small in amount but in every direction, ever fluctuating about a mean condition until made to advance in a given direction by "election," natural or artificial,--is the simple basis for the indefinite modification of the forms of life;--partial, unbalanced, and consequently unstable modifications being produced by man, while those developed under the unrestrained action of natural laws, are at every step self-adjusted to external conditions by the dying out of all unadjusted forms, and are therefore stable and comparatively permanent. To be consistent in their views, our opponents must maintain that every one of the variations that have rendered possible the changes produced by man, have been determined at the right time and place by the will of the Creator. Every race produced by the florist or the breeder, the dog or the pigeon fancier, the ratcatcher, the sporting man, or the slave-hunter, must have been provided for by varieties occurring when wanted; and as these variations were never withheld, it would prove, that the sanction of an all-wise and all-powerful Being, has been given to that which the highest human minds consider to be trivial, mean, or debasing. This appears to be a complete answer to the theory, that variation sufficient in amount to be accumulated in a given direction must be the direct act of the Creative Mind, but it is also sufficiently condemned by being so entirely unnecessary. The facility with which man obtains new races, depends chiefly upon the number of individuals he can procure to select from. When hundreds of florists or breeders are all aiming at the same object, the work of change goes on rapidly. But a common species in nature contains a thousand-or a million-fold more individuals than any domestic race; and survival of the fittest must unerringly preserve all that vary in the right direction, not only in obvious characters but in minute details, not only in external but in internal organs; so that if the materials are sufficient for the needs of man, there can be no want of them to fulfil the grand purpose of keeping up a supply of modified organisms, exactly adapted to the changed conditions that are always occurring in the inorganic world. _The Objection that there are Limits to Variation._