ii ON THE TENDENCY OF VARIETIES, ETC. 31 



ever in a state of domesticity. Our quickly fattening pigs, 

 short -legged sheep, pouter pigeons, and poodle dogs could 

 never have come into existence in a state of nature, because 

 the very first steps towards such inferior forms would have 

 led to the rapid extinction of the race ; still less could they 

 now exist in competition with their wild allies. The great 

 speed but slight endurance of the racehorse, the unwieldly 

 strength of the ploughman's team, would both be useless in 

 a state of nature. If turned wild on the pampas, such 

 animals would probably soon become extinct, or under 

 favourable circumstances might each gradually lose those 

 extreme qualities which would never be called into action, 

 and in a few generations revert to a common type, which 

 must be that in which the various powers and faculties are so 

 proportioned to each other as to be best adapted to procure 

 food and secure safety, that in which, by the full exercise of 

 every part of its organisation, the animal can alone continue 

 to live. Domestic varieties, when turned wild, must return 

 to something near the type of the original wild stock, or 

 become altogether extinct}- 



We see, then, that no inferences as to the permanence of 

 varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the ob- 

 servations of those occurring among domestic animals. The 

 two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance 

 of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure 

 not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, 

 irregular, artificial ; they are subject to variations which 

 never occur, and never can occur, in a state of nature : their 

 very existence depends altogether on human care so far are 

 many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, 

 that true balance of organisation, by means of which alone an 

 animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and 

 continue its race. 



Lamarck's Hypothesis very different from that now advanced 

 The hypothesis of Lamarck that progressive changes in 

 species have been produced by the attempts of animals to 



1 That is, they will vary, and the variations which tend to adapt them to 

 the wild state, and therefore approximate them to wild animals, will be pre- 

 served. Those individuals which do not vary sufficiently will perish. 



