1870— 1882] UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION 367 



To Otto Zacharias. Letter 278 



1877. 



When I was on board the Beagle I believed in the per- 

 manence of species, but, as far as I can remember, vague 

 doubts occasionally flitted across my mind. On my return 

 home in the autumn of 1S36 I immediately began to prepare 

 my journal for publication, and then saw how many facts 

 indicated the common descent of species, 1 so that in July, 

 1837, I opened a note-book to record any facts which might 

 bear on the question ; but I did not become convinced that 

 species were mutable until, I think, two or three years had 

 elapsed. 2 



To G. J. Romanes. Letter 279 



The following letter refers to MS. notes by Romanes, which we have 

 not seen. Darwin's remarks on it are, however, sufficiently clear. 



My address will be " Bassett, Southampton," 



June nth [1877]. 



I have received the crossing paper which you were so kind 



as to send me. It is very clear, and I quite agree with it ; 



but the point in question has not been a difficulty to me, as I 



have never believed in a new form originating from a single 



variation. What I have called unconscious selection by man 



illustrates, as it seems to me, the same principle as yours, 



within the same area. Man purchases the individual animals 



or plants which seem to him the best in any respect — some 



more so, and some less so— and, without any matching or 



pairing, the breed in the course of time is surely altered. 



The absence in numerous instances of intermediate or 



blending forms, in the border country between two closely 



1 "The facts to which reference is here made were, without doubt, 

 eminently fitted to attract the attention of a philosophical thinker ; but 

 until the relations of the existing with the extinct species and of the 

 species of the different geographical areas with one another were deter- 

 mined with some exactness, they afforded but an unsafe foundation for 

 speculation. It was not possible that this determination should have 

 been effected before the return of the Beagle to England ; and thus the 

 date which Darwin (writing in 1837) assigns to the dawn of the new light 

 which was rising in his mind becomes intelligible." — From Darwiniana, 

 Essays by Thomas 11. Huxley, London, 1893 ; pp. 274-5. 



2 On this last point see p. 38. 



