If now in the second and each succeeding year a similar proportion as at first (10 per cent) of the physiological variety is produced afresh from the ranks of the normal variety, the same rate of diminution will go on, and it will be found that, on the most favourable estimate, the physiological variety can never exceed 12,000 to the 88,000 of the normal form of the species, as shown by the following table:-- 1st Year. 10,000 of physiological variety to 90,000 of normal variety. 2d " 1,220 + 10,000 again produced. 3d " 16 + 1,220 + 10,000 do. = 11,236 4th " O + 16 + 1,220 + 10,000 do. = 11,236 5th " O + 16 + 1,220 + 10,000 = 11,236 and so on for any number of generations. In the preceding discussion we have given the theory the advantage of the large proportion of 10 per cent of this very exceptional variety arising in its midst year by year, and we have seen that, even under these favourable conditions, it is unable to increase its numbers much above its starting-point, and that it remains wholly dependent on the continued renewal of the variety for its existence beyond a few years. It appears, then, that this form of inter-specific sterility cannot be increased by natural or any other known form of selection, but that it contains within itself its own principle of destruction. If it is proposed to get over the difficulty by postulating a larger percentage of the variety annually arising within the species, we shall not affect the law of decrease until we approach equality in the numbers of the two varieties. But with any such increase of the physiological variety the species itself would inevitably suffer by the large proportion of sterile unions in its midst, and would thus be at a great disadvantage in competition with other species which were fertile throughout. Thus, natural selection will always tend to weed out any species with too great a tendency to sterility among its own members, and will therefore prevent such sterility from becoming the general characteristic of varying species, which this theory demands should be the case. On the whole, then, it appears clear that no form of infertility or sterility between the individuals of a species, can be increased by natural selection unless correlated with some useful variation, while all infertility not so correlated has a constant tendency to effect its own elimination. But the opposite property, fertility, is of vital importance to every species, and gives the offspring of the individuals which possess it, in consequence of their superior numbers, a greater chance of survival in the battle of life. It is, therefore, directly under the control of natural selection, which acts both by the self-preservation of fertile and the self-destruction of infertile stocks--except always where correlated as above, when they become useful, and therefore subject to be increased by natural selection.