152 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



rests essentially (as has already been intimated in the last 

 chapter) upon the comparison of those means which man 

 employs in the breeding of domestic animals and the culti- 

 vation of garden plants, with those processes which in 

 free nature, outside the cultivated state, lead to the coming 

 into existence of new species and new genera. We must 

 therefore, in order to understand the latter processes, 

 first turn to the artificial breeding by man, as was, in fact, 

 done by Darwin himself. We must inquire into the results 

 to which man attains by his artificial breeding, and what 

 means are aj)plied in order to obtain those results ; and we 

 must then ask ourselves, " Are there in nature similar forces 

 and causes acting similarly to those resorted to by man ? " 



First, in regard to artificial breeding, we start from the 

 fact last discussed above, viz. that its products in some 

 cases differ from one another much more than the produc- 

 tions of natural breeding. It is a fact that races or varieties 

 often differ from one another in a much greater degree and 

 in much more important qualities than many so-called 

 species, or " good species," — nay, sometimes even more than 

 so-called "good genera" in their natural state. Compare, 

 for example, the different kinds of apples which the art 

 of horticulture has derived from one and the same 

 original apple-form, or compare the different races of horses 

 which their breeders have derived from one and the same 

 original form of horse, and it will be easily observed that 

 the differences of the most different forms are extreme] v 

 important, and much more important than the so-calleri 

 " specific differences," which are referred to by zoologists and 

 botanists when comparing wild forms for the purpose o^ 

 distinguishing several so-called " good species." 



