& 
Price.] 294 [Jan. 5, 
acting under a power that ever corrected them. The wild progenitors 
were without variations; in that state new species were not formed by 
process of variations ; nor was there transition by gradual change from a 
lower to higher species ; nor do geology and history afford the proof of such 
change, and the theory depends upon conjecture asserted against the 
truth of our observations and just inferences, that nature has always 
operated as we see her now do in those vast domains of ocean, mountain 
and forest, that lie beyond the interference of man. With the living 
ife of the oceans man can do nothing except slightly to diminish the 
numbers of whales and fishes, and there the processes of nature go on 
without change ; and so has it ever been in the deep recesses of forest and 
mountains yet unpenetrated by man, or, if the scientific adventurer has 
penetrated, it has been to leave no trace of his power there. It has been 
man only that has disturbed the truthful proceedings of nature ; modified 
them for his own benefit. 
Again, it is to be considered that all that man has done, he must forever 
continue to do, otherwise nature will re-assert her dominion, and undo 
all that man had done to mar, or pervert, or perfect her works ; and she 
will restore them to their pristine simplicity. This we know she is always 
doing, from abundant observations; she makes hybrids unfruitful ; her 
ban forbids changes that shall endure ; the seedsman and gardener ever 
watch their choice crops, fruits, vegetables and esculents, and must do so, 
for they know well that nature ever resumes the attempt to ‘‘cry back ;’’ 
that is, to return to that condition from which the skill of man has forced 
her to meet his own wants, or to please his fancy. Who can reasonably 
doubt that if man was to cease to be on the earth that his seeds, and es- 
culents, fruits, and all domesticated animals would in process of time, 
return to their natural conditions? Human care and culture and pro- 
visions ceasing, the antecedent causes of nature would again come into 
exclusive operation ; and by her own truthful observance of cause and 
effect, the ancient condition of vegetable and animal life would be re- 
stored as they were on the face of the earth. Without his stores of pro- 
vision and provender and shelter, a single severe winter would cut his 
before housed and sheltered vegetables and animals, by frost or starva- 
tion, down to about the thirty-seventh degree of latitude ; and half the 
variations that have grown up under the training hand of man might 
perish at a blow. What man has achieved over living nature may, there- 
fore, be considered as an artificial work of but temporary endurance. Dar- 
win fully admits this when he says, ‘‘ Natural selection is a power inces- 
santly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man’s feeble 
efforts as the works of nature are superior to art.’? Ib. p. 70. When let 
alone she elects to return to her original conditions. 
Of the variation produced by selection in breeding and the better care 
of animals, Darwin says, ‘‘the key is man’s power of accumulative selec- 
tion: Nature gives successive variations ; man adds them up in certain 
directions useful to him, In this sense he may be said to have made for 
himself useful breeds.’’? Origin of Species, 40. But what does nature do 
A 
