The effect of this we might expect would influence in some small degree the size, colour, nature of covering &c., and from inexplicable influences even special parts and organs of the body. But we might further (and <this> is far more important) expect that the reproductive system would be affected, as under domesticity, and the structure of the offspring rendered in some degree plastic. Hence almost every part of the body would tend to vary from the typical form in slight degrees, and in no determinate way, and therefore _without selection_ the free crossing of these small variations (together with the tendency to reversion to the original form) would constantly be counteracting this unsettling effect of the extraneous conditions on the reproductive system. Such, I conceive, would be the unimportant result without selection. And here I must observe that the foregoing remarks are equally applicable to that small and admitted amount of variation which has been observed in some organisms in a state of nature; as well as to the above hypothetical variation consequent on changes of condition. Let us now suppose a Being{224} with penetration sufficient to perceive differences in the outer and innermost organization quite imperceptible to man, and with forethought extending over future centuries to watch with unerring care and select for any object the offspring of an organism produced under the foregoing circumstances; I can see no conceivable reason why he could not form a new race (or several were he to separate the stock of the original organism and work on several islands) adapted to new ends. As we assume his discrimination, and his forethought, and his steadiness of object, to be incomparably greater that those qualities in man, so we may suppose the beauty and complications of the adaptations of the new races and their differences from the original stock to be greater than in the domestic races produced by man's agency: the ground-work of his labours we may aid by supposing that the external conditions of the volcanic island, from its continued emergence and the occasional introduction of new immigrants, vary; and thus to act on the reproductive system of the organism, on which he is at work, and so keep its organization somewhat plastic. With time enough, such a Being might rationally (without some unknown law opposed him) aim at almost any result. {224} A corresponding passage occurs in _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 83, vi. p. 101, where however Nature takes the place of the selecting Being.