CREATION BY LAW. 291 



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 unerr- 

 ingly 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 pur- 

 pose 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. 



Having now, I believe, fairly answered the chief ob- 

 jections of the Duke of Argyll, I proceed to notice one 

 or two of those adduced in an able and argumentative 

 essay on the " Origin of Species " in the North British 

 Review for July, 1867. The writer first attempts to 

 prove that there are strict limits to variation. When 

 we begin to select variations in any one direction, the 

 process is comparatively rapid, but after a considerable 



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