NATURAL CONDITIONS 5 



Hence (?) we should expect every now and then 

 a wild form to vary l ; possibly this may be cause 

 of some species varying more than others. 



According to nature of new conditions, so we 

 might expect all or majority of organisms born 

 under them to vary in some definite way. Further 

 we might expect that the mould in which they are 

 cast would likewise vary in some small degree. But 

 is there any means of selecting those offspring which 

 vary in the same manner, crossing them and keeping 

 their offspring separate and thus producing selected 

 races : otherwise as the wild animals freely cross, so 

 must such small heterogeneous varieties be con- 

 stantly counter-balanced and lost, and a uniformity 

 of character [kept up] preserved. The former 

 variation as the direct and necessary effects of 

 causes, which we can see can act on them, as size 

 of body from amount of food, effect of certain 

 kinds of food on certain parts of bodies &c. &c. ; 

 such new varieties may then become adapted to 

 those external [natural] agencies which act on them. 

 But can varieties be produced adapted to end, 

 which cannot possibly influence their structure and 

 which it is absurd to look (at) as effects of chance. 

 Can varieties like some vars of domesticated 

 animals, like almost all wild species be produced 

 adapted by exquisite means to prey on one animal 

 or to escape from another, or rather, as it puts out 

 of question effects of intelligence and habits, can a 

 plant become adapted to animals, as a plant which 

 cannot be impregnated without agency of insect; 

 or hooked seeds depending on animal's existence : 

 woolly animals cannot have any direct effect on 

 seeds of plant. This point which all theories about 



1 When the author wrote this sketch he seems not to have been so 

 fully convinced of the general occuirence of variation in nature as he 

 afterwards became. The above passage in the text possibly suggests that 

 at this time he laid more stress on sports or mutations than was afterwards 

 the case. 



