1866. | Darwin and his Teachings. 165 
must demur to his construction of causes. It is true that man does 
not produce variability himself, in one sense, but he does so in 
another, and in the highest sense. Speaking of selection by man, 
the author says :— 
“Tf selection consisted merely in separating some distinct variety 
and breeding from it, the principle would be so obvious as hardly to 
be worth notice ; but its importance consists in the great effect pro- 
duced by the accumulation in any direction, during successive 
generations, of differences absolutely inappreciable by an uneducated 
eye; differences which I, for one, have vainly attempted to appreciate. 
Not one man in a thousand has accuracy of eye and judgment sufficient 
to become an eminent breeder. If gifted with these qualities, and he 
studies his subject for years, and devotes his lifetime to it with indo- 
mitable perseverance, he willsucceed, and may make great improvements ; 
if he wants any of these qualities he will assuredly fail. Few would 
readily believe in the natural capacity and years of practice requisite 
to become even a skilful pigeon-fancier.”* 
If it necessitates such an amount of judgment, such indomitable 
perseverance, and so practised an eye to detect the slight differences 
needed for artificial selection, that even our illustrious experimenter 
and observer admits that he is unable to appreciate and avail himself 
of them, is it not at least a rational, or let us rather say a scientific 
inference, looking at the phenomena of Nature, that an Intelligence 
beyond our conception, but still acting in Nature as Man does in 
artificial breeding (for if it be otherwise, Darwin’s theory falls to 
the ground), that such an omniscient Intelligence, we say, is ever 
and ever watching, directing, and employing each minutest change, 
producing cause and effect, co-adapting and co-arranging all things 
to perfection? But we shall have occasion to show hereafter that 
the author does not believe that the changes referred to are brought 
about “by means superior to, though analogous with, human 
reason,” and if he has intended in some other manner to acknowledge 
his belief in an ever-active Providence, his volume has failed to 
convey such an impression. 
And believing that ‘“ Natural Selection” is the agency in modi- 
fying species, the author considers that it acts by seizing upon, 
and transmitting it to its progeny, any slight differences which 
distinguish the individual from its parent, and which may be 
conducive to the welfare of that imdividual. In other words, if a 
change is taking place in external nature (“the conditions of 
existence’’), and if a particular individual happen to possess an 
attribute, be it structural or instinctive, which better adapts it 
to that change, then ‘“ Natural Selection” marks that individual 
for its own purposes, just as man selects his ram or his ewe, his 
dog, his horse, or his pigeon, and the law which the author 
calls “the hereditary transmission of peculiarities” perpetuates the 
* © Origin of Species,’ pp. 32-3. 
