320 WHAT OF THE FUTURE? 



variation may differ in the respective orders, but from the 

 law of variation there can be no possible exemption. And 

 if this rate of variation has hitherto been more rapid in the 

 higher than in the lower orders, the existing varieties of 

 man must consequently the sooner pass into other and 

 higher varieties. 



In the last place, a new and important element must 

 ever be taken into account in all our reasonings respecting 

 the future flora and fauna of the globe. During the old 

 geological epochs the " Law of Development," or whatever 

 else it may be termed, exerted itself universally, and this 

 without control or interference by human operations. 

 Now, however, and during the current epoch, man comes 

 in as a modifying and sub-creative agent here removing 

 and extirpating, there transferring and multiplying, and 

 this the more signally the more settled and civilised he be- 

 comes. Observe what changes must have taken place since 

 civilised man first took possession of Asia and Europe, and 

 how much more since, under the impulse of modern pro- 

 gress, he has carried his efforts to America and Australia ! 

 The natural flora of a region must make way for his culti- 

 vated plants, and the fauna for his domesticated animals. 

 Here he reclaims and extirpates, and this extirpation reacts 

 in a hundred ways on the surrounding fauna. There he 

 transfers and acclimatises, and in a few generations the 

 plants and animals of the Old World flourish and multiply 

 in the New, and by reciprocation those of the New World 

 become equally prolific in the Old. Here he destroys the 

 plant, and the animal deprived of its food shifts ground or 

 dies out ; there he introduces a new animal, and, in the 

 struggle for existence, some weaker and less elastic species 

 succumbs before the intruder. Of course, there are great 

 climatal limits to this transference, which the utmost inge- 



