NATURAL SELECTION 85 



power of selection, (c) This sentence gives a distorted 

 view of Nature, (d) There is no occasion for wonder 

 that Nature's productions should be far " truer " in 

 character than man's, and should bear the stamp of 

 far higher workmanship ; for the simple reason that 

 they work with different materials. Man works with 

 fugitive and unfixable entities, namely, individual 

 variations ; while Nature builds up her new creations 

 with the fixed and permanent material of specific 

 characters. 



In forming a new breed, man selects individuals suited 

 to his purpose as possessing certain variations which 

 he wishes to render prominent and emphasised in his 

 contemplated new form. Having secured a sufficient 

 number of similarly varied individuals, he proceeds to 

 isolate them so that they can only breed among them- 

 selves. Accordingly, their offspring inheriting from 

 both parents, will generally possess the same variations, 

 and being in their turn kept in isolation like their 

 parents, will transmit them to their offspring. But as 

 no two individuals ever are exactly identical, or with- 

 out some points of variance, it frequently happens 

 that in the incalculable play of Nature's individualisa- 

 tion, all the offspring are not cast in the same mould 

 of trueness to the type which the breeder wishes to 

 preserve. He removes, therefore, the more untrue 

 individuals, keeping only those that more truly 

 approach his ideal form. Thus a new breed is formed, 

 and preserved from generation to generation, from 

 breeders keeping their eye fixed on the same ideal 



