Z INTRODUCTION 



used. The reader will, I think, find tliis plan a convenience, 

 for, if he does not doubt the conclusion or care about the 

 details, he can easily pass them over ; yet I may be permitted 

 to saj' that some of the discussions thus printed deserve 

 attention, at least from the professed naturalist. 



It may be useful to those who have read nothing about 

 Natural Selection, if I here give a brief sketch of the whole 

 subject and of its bearing on the origin of species.^ This is 

 the more desirable, as it is impossible in the present work to 

 avoid many allusions to questions which will be fully discussed 

 in future volumes. 



From a remote period, in all parts of the world, man has 

 subjected many animals and plants to domestication or culture. 

 Man has no power of altering the absolute conditions of life ; 

 he cannot change the climate of any country ; he adds no new 

 element to the soil ; but he can remove an animal or plant 

 from one climate or soil to another, and give it food on w'hich 

 it did not subsist in its natural state. It is an error to speak 

 of man " tampering with nature " and causing variability. If 

 a man drops a piece of iron into sulphuric acid, it cannot be 

 said strictly that he makes the sulphate of iron, he only 

 allows their elective affinities to come into play. If organic 

 beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man 

 could have done nothing.^ He unintentionally exposes his 

 animals an-d plants to varioiis conditions of life, and varia- 

 bility supervenes, which he cannot even prevent or check. 

 Consider the simple case of a plant which has been cultivated 

 during a long time in its native country, and which conse 

 quently has not b'^en subjected to any change of climate. It 

 has been protected to a certain extent from the competing 

 roots of plants of other kinds ; it has generally been grown in 

 manured soil ; but probably not richer than that of many an 



' To any one who has attentively tinued ill-health, 

 read my ' Origin of Species ' this lutro- - M. Pouchet has recently (' Plural- 



duction will be superfluous. As I ity of Races,' Eng. Translat., 1864, p. 



stated in that work that I should 83, &c.) insisted that variation under 



soon publish the facts on which the domestication throws no light on the 



conclusions given in it were founded, natural modification of species. I 



I here beg permission to remark that cannot perceive the force of his argu- 



the great delay in publishing this ments, or, to speak more accurately, 



first work has been caused by con- of his assertions to this effect. 



