As geology plainly proclaims that each land has undergone great physical
changes, we might have expected to find that organic beings have varied
under Nature in the same way as they have varied under domestication.
And if there has been any variability under Nature, it would be an
unaccountable fact if natural selection had not come into play. It has
often been asserted, but the assertion is incapable of proof, that the
amount of variation under Nature is a strictly limited quantity. Man,
though acting on external characters alone, and often capriciously, can
produce within a short period a great result by adding up mere
individual differences in his domestic productions; and everyone admits
that species present individual differences. But, besides such
differences, all naturalists admit that natural varieties exist, which
are considered sufficiently distinct to be worthy of record in
systematic works.
No one has drawn any clear distinction between individual differences
and slight varieties, or between more plainly marked varieties and
sub-species and species. On separate continents, and on different parts
of the same continent when divided by barriers of any kind, what a
multitude of forms exist which some experienced naturalists rank as
varieties, others as geographical races or sub-species, and others as
distinct, though closely allied species!
If, then, animals and plants do vary, let it be ever so slightly or
slowly, why should not variations or individuals, differences which are
in any way beneficial, be preserved and accumulated through natural
selection, or the survival of the fittest? If man can, by patience,
select variations useful to him, why, under changing and complex
conditions of life, should not variations useful to Nature's living
products often arise, and be preserved, or selected? What limit can be
put to this power, acting during long ages and rigidly scrutinising the
whole constitution, structure, and habits of each creature--favouring
the good and rejecting the bad? I can see no limit to this power, in
slowly and beautifully adapting each form to the most complex relations
of life.
In the future I see open fields for far more important researches.
Psychology will be based on the foundation already well laid by Mr.
Herbert Spencer--that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power
and capacity by gradation. Much light will be thrown on the origin of
man and his history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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