ON ADAPTATION 



We have seen the price which variation costs; 

 now we begin to see the value of it. Among 

 those violets, environment the environment of 

 the present combining with heredity which is the 

 recorded environment of all the past contrived 

 to see that there were no duplicates; that each 

 violet, a little different from its mate, might, 

 through its difference, be suited to a separate 

 purpose, or fitted to carry a separate burden, or 

 designed to fill a separate want. 



If the violets had been as like as pins, they 

 would have stayed as like as pins when planted 

 in that friendly dooryard. 



But because each had within it the power of 

 transmitting variation, the power of responding, 

 ever so little, to the trend of its surroundings, one 

 violet became a pansy. 



***** 



Among our human acquaintances we know 

 those who are sturdy, and those who are weak; 

 those who have well developed minds at the 

 expense of their muscles, and those who have well 

 developed muscles at the expense of their minds, 

 and those with a more evenly balanced develop- 

 ment; we know some who are tall and some who 

 are short; some with brown eyes and some with 

 blue; some who lean toward commerce, and some 

 who lean toward art; and on and on, throughout 



[135] 



