290 CREATION BY LAW. 



hound to catch a hare, or a bloodhound to hunt down 

 their oppressed fellow-creatures, the required varia- 

 tions have always appeared. 



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 fluctuat- 

 ing about a mean condition until made to advance in 

 a given direction by " selection," natural or artificial, 

 is the simple basis for the indefinite modification 

 of the forms of life ; partial, unbalanced, and con- 

 sequently 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 unad- 

 justed forms, and are therefore stable and compara- 

 tively permanent. To be consistent in their views, our 

 opponents must maintain that every one of the varia- 

 tions 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 occur- 

 ring 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. 



