VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION. 125 



one point essential to their perpetuation is that 

 they shall vary in such a manner as to render 

 themselves more useful or pleasing to man, in 

 order to ensure his protection. 



Had the theory of Special Creation been true, 

 we could not reasonably have expected that any 

 appreciable improvement or modification would 

 have taken place in species subjected to domes- 

 tication. But here as elsewhere we perceive the 

 beauty and harmony of the arrangements which 

 allow the earth and its organisms -to improve 

 together, and are able to admire some small part 

 of the exquisite laws by which the Universe is 

 governed, and which absolutely dispense witli 

 the necessity for any miraculous interposition, 

 which if it existed in Nature, would for ever 

 render the whole system of Nature entirely in- 

 comprehensible to us. 



