6 PRELIMINARY INQUIRIES. 



variation which we see daily in operation, that in these descendants of different broods, exactly the 

 same kind and degree of variation, and in the same direction, should occur in all. It seemed to me 

 still more incredible that each of the members of all these broods should jn-oduce exactly the same 

 amount and kind of further variation in their many broods ; and so on, through a longer or shorter 

 period. 



There should, on this principle, be a multitude of varieties, and not one type only. This seemed 

 to me sound reasoning ; and it is sound, from the premises assumed. But a doubt has begun to grow 

 in my mind as to the soundness of one part of the premises. I have no doubt as to the fallacy of 

 this constant persistence of change ; but I am not so clear as I was, that it is an impossibility for 

 Nature ichen she does make a change to make the transition gradually or over large bodies simultane- 

 ously, and yet show no traces of the process. I think I see some facts which imply as much, and 

 I think I see what the brake is by means of which the progress of change is arrested. 



We know that throughout the world, multitudes both of local and climatal varieties occur, 

 which, whether they are species or varieties, still possess one common facies. There are dozens of 

 forms of plants and insects from North America, which are so like European individuals of the 

 same species, that no one would think of separating them ; and yet any botanist or entomologist 

 will tell without foil from which side of the Atlantic each sjoecimen came. There are similar 

 varieties of man in every land. How ha.ve these differences of form been produced ? On this j)oint 

 we are not whoUy left without direction ; we have a faint glimmering of light, because we have 

 seen a race of man formed imder our o\\ti eyes, the Anglo- — -or rather the Europeo- American 

 nation, as distinct and weU marked a race as any other ; and yet the change has been effected over 

 the whole of the United States without any transition men ever having been observed ; and what 

 is still more extraoi-diuary, it has been effected over the whole of the region where it occurs at the 

 same time. The race has apparently not been produced by an American being born from an 

 Englishman, and then by his propagating yoimg vVnicricans, but hundreds of thousands have 

 had the same impress affixed upon them over the length and breadth of the land at the same time. 

 Agassiz may be right, after all, although not in the sense in which, I imagine, he meant it, when he 

 contended for a multiple origin of species. Now, according to the reasoning in which I trusted, there 

 should have been no Anglo-American nation, — the \ype should have been frittered away in a 

 thousand different directions. A congeries of aU kinds of different degrees of change shoidd have been 

 jumbled up together, leaving no distinguishable character by which to know the American from any 

 other nation. And yet, there he is, a nation 2><^>' se ; known to "Punch," — kno-mi to passport 

 officers, — known to ourselves, — easily identified, easily figured, and easily caricatured. 80, I 

 believe, there is a modern Mexican race ; a modern Brazilian ; modern Negroes, and a modern 

 Australian race is far on the way. Although the example of the American is, perhaps, the most 

 striking I could select, being almost the only one where man has had the oj^portunity, or, at least, 

 has had the occasion forced upon him, of observing such a change, there is no reason to doubt that 

 what has occurred with him has also taken place in a multitude 6f other varieties. 



Such an argitmcnfiim ad hominem is hard to get over, and I do not mean to attempt to do so. I 

 have come to the conclusion to accept tlie fact, that Nature can produce a new tj'pe without our 

 being able to see the marks of transition, and that she can alter a whole race simultaneously without 

 its passing through tlie phase of development from an individual in whom the entire change 

 was first perfected. In the case alluded to, the prepotent tj^pical influence has been impressed on tlie 

 whole ; no doubt, by derivation, but still by some additional influence affecting many at the same 



