EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



point, Mr. Darwin made a very elaborate study 

 of all that farmers, horticulturists, and breeders 

 could impart concerning " artificial selection ; " 

 and more especially with regard to pigeons his 

 own observations were so extensive and minute 

 that, when the " Origin of Species " was pub- 

 lished, I recollect reading one silly review, in 

 which we were gravely informed that here was 

 a new theory of development, not by a natu- 

 ralist, but by a mere pigeon-fancier, and prob- 

 ably worthy of very little consideration ! 



Such being the wonders which man has 

 wrought within a comparatively short time 

 through " artificial selection " in the breeding 

 of animals and plants, the question next arises 

 whether any selective process like this has been 

 going on through countless ages without the 

 intervention of man. Can it be that there is a 

 " natural selection " of individual variations, 

 whereby new species are produced in just the 

 same way that breeders produce new races of 

 pigeons ? There is such a " natural selection " 

 forever going on as one of the inseparable con- 

 comitants of organic life; and it was just in the 

 detection of this great truth that the very kernel 

 of Mr. Darwin's stupendous discovery consisted. 

 It was here that the poetic or creative act of 

 genius came into play, just as it did in Newton's 

 discovery, when the fall of the moon was likened 

 to the fall of the apple, and the tangential force 

 326 



