MR. PA TRICK MA TTHE W. 321 



than any other kind ; the weaker and less circumstance- 

 suited leing prematurely destroyed. This principle is 

 in constant action ; it regulates the colour, the figure, 

 the capacities, and instincts ; those individuals in each 

 species whose colour and covering are best suited to 

 concealment or protection from enemies, or defence 

 from inclemencies and vicissitudes of climate, whose 

 figure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence, 

 and support; whose capacities and instincts can best 

 regulate the physical energies to self-advantage accord- 

 ing to circumstances in such immense waste of primary 

 and youthful life those only come forward to maturity 

 from the strict ordeal by which nature tests their 

 adaptation to her standard of perfection and fitness to 

 continue their kind by reproduction. 



" From the unremitting operation of this law acting 

 in concert with the tendency which the progeny have 

 to take the more particular qualities of the parents, 

 together with the connected sexual system in vege- 

 tables and instinctive limitation to its own kind in 

 animals, a considerable uniformity of figure, colour, and 

 character is induced constituting species; the breed 

 gradually acquiring the very best possible adaptation 

 of these to its condition which it is susceptible of, and 

 when alteration of circumstance occurs, thus changing 

 in character to suit these, as far as its nature is suscep- 

 tible of change. 



" This circumstance-adaptive law operating upon the 

 slight but continued natural disposition to sport in the 

 progeny (seedling variety) does not preclude the supposed 

 influence which volition or sensation may have had over 



Y 



