On the Origin of Species* 115 



it is well known to furriers that animals of the same species have 

 thicker and better fur the more severe the climate is under which 

 they have lived ; but who can tell how much of this difference 

 may be due to the warmest-clad individuals having been favoured 

 and preserved during many generations, and how much to the 

 direct action of the severe climate ? for it would appear that cli- 

 mate has some direct action on the hair of our domestic qua- 

 drupeds." 



"Instances could be given of the same variety being produced 

 under conditions of life as different as can well be conceived ; 

 and, on the other hand, of different varieties being produced from 

 the same species under the same conditions. Such facts show 

 kow indirectly the conditions of life must act. Again, innume- 

 rable instances are known to every naturalist of species keeping 

 true, or not varying at all, although living under the most opposite 

 climates. Such considerations as these incline me to lay very 

 little wei2:ht on the direct action of the conditions of life. In- 

 directly, as already remarked, they seem to play an important 

 part in affecting the reproductive system, and in thus inducing 

 variability ; and natural selection will then accumulate all profi- 

 table variations, however slight, until they become plainly deve- 

 loped and appreciable by us." 



It would be possible to fill up the remainder of our space with 

 the objections we have to the statements in these few paragraphs. 

 The scepticism as to the effects of food, climate, &c., in producing 

 variation, and the effects attributable to a supposed selecting power 

 which can merely act on such changes when previously induced ; 

 the failure to perceive that the adaptation of certain species to 

 certain conditions of life necessarily implies that if other species not 

 so adapted migrate within the influence of the conditions, they 

 must, so far as their natures permit, be influenced by them ; that 

 in short such variation vindicates the wisdom of the Creator while 

 showing that the plasticity of species may simulate in a humble 

 way specific distinctness ; the feeble attempt to attribute the warm 

 fur of northern varieties to selection, while manifestly unable to 

 deny that climatic influence is the main cause ; these are specimens 

 of a style of thought which pervades the whole book, and which 

 leaves the task of a reviewer hopeless, for it would require a book 

 as large as the original to expose the fallacies which appear in 

 every paragraph. 



In one respect Mr. Darwin vindicates fully his well-earned 



