78 Permanence and Evolution. 



predict under the supposed conditions, and it is 

 very like whatever we see in nature to which 

 the name of natural variation can be applied. 



Very often we find a pervading character 

 applicable to all the local races of a certain 

 area, as, for instance, that the West American 

 squirrels are black, and the local race of racoon 

 too, and so on. These facts are very curious, 

 but equally consistent with any hypothesis of 

 the origin of types. We do not see how the 

 direct influence of the conditions of life should 

 make animals black ; in fact, we know from 

 most varied experience that they have no such 

 influence. Just as difficult is it to conceive how 

 natural selection could have acted so, and why 

 black forms should have primarily arisen in one 

 place more than another is equally unaccount- 

 able. The fact gives no support to one hypo- 

 thesis more than to another. Some naturalist 

 was supposed to have seen nature in the very 

 .act of transmuting forms, when what he did see 



