Mr. E. V. Nealc on Typical Selection. 333 



including many lesser circles, where we find the same tendency re- 

 peated. Now this character of natural types oflFcrs a mode of passage 

 from one type to another. Assume a subtypical variety to acquire 

 a special aptness for interbreeding with itself, to the exclusion of 

 other varieties, and it would become an independent type. But how 

 ia this special aptness to be acquired ? That it does not accompany the 

 formation of subtypes we see in numerous instances ; and it would 

 clearly be inconsistent with the idea of a natural type that it should 

 do so, if, as has been suggested, it is the characteristic of such a 

 type to preserve itself by the mutual actions of its varieties. That it 

 should belong to some one variety and not to others, in virtue of the 

 general principle of variation, is a supposition inconsistent with 

 itself: a general principle must apply to every individual case. There 

 remains only the hypothesis of a special selection, by which particular 

 varieties are internally modified, so as to acquire this special aptitude. 

 Now such a special selection appears to me to involve the transition, 

 which must take place at some point in all physical research, from 

 conditioned, to self-conditioning power, from will working by uphold- 

 ing laws, to will working by constituting the laws to be upheld ; in 

 other words, we must resort to the hypothesis of an intelligent action 

 as the only intelligible one. Accordingly it is to an intelligent choice, 

 exercised upon the infinity of possible variations capable of arising in 

 different organisms, through the laws belonging to their natures, that 

 I would attribute the formation of species by what I venture to call 

 Typical selection. 



When that Power, of whose ordering will I conceive nature to be 

 the expression, purposes to produce a new race, I suppose It to select 

 from some existing race those individuals which show a disposition 

 to vary in the desired direction, so modifying their constitutions as 

 to render their unions] with each other more prolific than their 

 unions with other individuals differently formed, and if they are 

 conscious agents, so modifying their instincts as to give them a pre- 

 ference for each other. How this internal modification is produced, 

 I no more attemjjt to explain than Mr. Darwin attempts to explain 

 how life was originally produced and is continued. The one act is 

 not more difficult to conceive than the other. But there is no neces- 

 sity for supposing the modification to be considerable in any one case. 

 Divine providence need not be in a hurry. The amount of change at 

 any step of the process of forming a new species may be very small, 

 and the completion of that process may require many generations. 



The modification of the sexual instinct and fertility of sexual 

 unions may be gradually introduced, and at first be scarcely percep- 

 tible. But if the alteration be brought about by an internal action 

 tending always in the same direction, each generation will approxi- 

 mate more closely to the character of a new type ; and by the time 

 that the external change has become considerable, a corresponding 

 amount of internal change will have been produced. A new phase 

 of the principle of permanence will have taken its place in creation, 

 amongst the many phases of the principle of change ; the variety 

 will be transformed into a species. 



