CHAP. I.I UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. 23 



and flowers of the same set of varieties. See how different the 

 leaves of the cabbage are, and how extremely alike the flowers ; 

 how unlike the flowers of the heartsease are, and how alike the 

 leaves ; how much the fruit of the different kinds of gooseberries 

 differ in size, colour, shape, and hairiness, and yet the flowers 

 present very slight differences. It is not that the varieties which 

 differ largely in some one point do not differ at all in other points ; 

 this is hardly ever, I speak after careful observation, perhaps 

 never, the case. The law of correlated variation, the importance 

 of which should never be overlooked, will ensure some differences ; 

 but, as a general rule, it cannot be doubted that the continued 

 selection of slight variations, either in the leaves, the flowers, or 

 the fruit, will produce races differing from each other chiefly in 

 these characters. 



It may be objected that the principle of selection has been 

 reduced to methodical practice for scarcely more than three- 

 quarters of a century ; it has certainly been more attended to of 

 iate years, and many treatises have been published on the subject ; 

 and the result has been, in a corresponding degree, rapid and im- 

 portant. But it is very far from true that the principle is a modem 

 discovery. I could give several references to works of high anti- 

 quity, in which the full importance of the principle is acknow- 

 ledged. In rude and barbarous periods of English history choice 

 animals were often imported, and laws were passed to prevent 

 their exportation : the destruction of horses under a certain size 

 was ordered, and this may be compared to the " roguing " of plants 

 by nurserymen. The principle of selection I find distinctly given 

 in an ancient Chinese encyclopaedia. Explicit rules are laid down 

 by some of the Roman classical writers. From passages in Genesis, 

 it is clear that the colour of domesticated animals was at that early 

 period attended to. Savages now sometimes cross their dogs with 

 wild canine animals, to improve the breed, and they formerly did 

 so, as is attested by passages in Pliny. The savages in South 

 Africa match their draught cattle by colour, as do some of the 

 Esquimaux their teams of dogs. Livingstone states that good 

 domestic breeds are highly valued by the negroes in the interior 

 of Africa who have not associated with Europeans. Some of these 

 facts do not show actual selection, but they show that the breeding 

 of domestic animals was carefully attended to in ancient times, and 

 is now attended to by the lowest savages. It would, indeed, have 

 been a strange fact, had attention not been paid to breeding, for 

 the inheritance of good and bad qualities is so obvious. 



Unconsciow Selection. 



At the present time, eminent breeders try by methodical selec- 

 tion, with a distinct object in view, to make a new strain or sub- 



