Darwin-Wo.llace Celebration. 105 



even rears its young without human assistance. Half of its 

 senses and faculties are quite useless ; and the other half are 

 but occasionally called into feeble exercise, while even its 

 muscular system is only irregularly called into action. 



Now when a variety of such an animal occurs, having 

 increased power or capacity in any organ or sense, such in- 

 crease is totally useless, is never called into action, and m;iy 

 -even exist without the animal ever becoming aware of it. In 

 the wild animal, on the contrary, all its faculties and powers 

 being brought into full action for the necessities of existence, 

 any increase becomes immediately available, is strengthened 

 by exercise, and must even slightly modify the food, the 

 habits, and the whole economy of the race. It creates as it 

 were a new animal, one of superior powers, and which will 

 necessarily increase in numbers and outlive those inferior 

 to it. 



Again, in the domesticated animal all variations have 

 an equal chance of continuance ; and those which would 

 decidedly render a wild animal unable to compete with 

 its fellows and continue its existence are no disadvantage 

 whatever in a state of domesticity. Our quickly fattening 

 pigs, short-legged sheep, pouter pigeons, and poodle dogs 

 could never have come into existence in a state of nature, 

 because the very first step towards such inferior forms would 

 have led to the rapid extinction of the race ; still less could 

 ihey now exist in competition with their wild allies. The 

 great speed but slight endurance of the race horse, the un- 

 wieldy strength of the ploughman's team, would both be 

 useless in a state of nature. If turned wild on the pampas, 

 such animals would probably soon become extinct, or under 

 favourable circumstances might each lose those extreme 

 qualities which would never be called into action, and in a 

 few generations would revert to a common type, which must 

 be that in. which the various powers and faculties are so 

 proportioned to each other as to be best adapted to procure 

 food and secure safety, that in which by the full exercise 

 of every part of his organization the animal can alone con- 

 tinue to live. Domestic varieties, when turned wild, must 

 return to something near the type of the original wild stock, 

 or become altogether extinct. 



We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state 

 of nature can be deduced from the observation of those 

 occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much 

 opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, 

 that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply 



