LUTHER BURBANK 
an infinite number of variations, an _ infinite 
combination of those variations, each variation 
representing the result of present environment 
reacting upon all of the environments of the ages, 
stored away. 
As a people, we traveled by stage till the 
railroad came; and then in a single generation, 
because of the variation and the adaptability 
among us, we found surveyors to push their 
iransits over the hills, and valleys, and streams; 
we found woodchoppers to make ties, we found 
steel makers who for the first time in their lives 
fashioned a rail, we found engineers, and firemen, 
and switchmen and superintendents, and railroad 
presidents, each to play his part in fulfilling the 
common desire for transportation, each able to 
adapt himself to new duties—and all because of 
this variation that is in us. 
As a people, we submitted to a ruler across the 
seas till among our variant individuals there 
arose some who, different from the rest, adapted 
themselves to the formulation of a declaration of 
independence, the framing of a code of principles, 
the organization of a successful revolution. 
As a people, threatened with the constant peril 
of cures which were worse than their diseases, 
there appeared out of the variable mass one who 
gave us antiseptic surgery. 
[136] 
