I NAUDIN (1852) 21 



" We do not think that Nature has made her species 

 in a different fashion from that in which we proceed 

 ourselves in order to make our variations. To say the 

 truth, we have practised her very method. When we 

 wish, out of some zoological or botanical species, to 

 obtain a variety which answers to such or such of our 

 needs, we select (choisissons) out of the large number of 

 the individuals of this species, so as to make them the 

 starting point of a new stirp, those which seem already 

 to depart from the specific type in the direction which 

 suits us, and, by a rational and continuous sorting of 

 the descendants, after an undetermined number of 

 generations we create types or artificial species, which 

 correspond more or less with the ideal type we had 

 imagined, and which transmit the acquired characters 

 to their descendants in proportion to the number of 

 generations upon which our efforts have been bearing. 

 Such is, in our opinion, the method followed by Nature; 

 as well as by ourselves ; she has wished to create races 

 conformable to her needs, and, with a comparatively 

 small number of primitive types, she has successively, 

 and at different periods, given birth to all the animal 

 and vegetable species which people the earth." . . . 



This says nothing of the reason for which Nature 

 follows such a method, but the method is exactly that 

 which we know under the name of natural selection and 

 artificial selection. It seems fair to say that Naudin's 



