290 CREATION BY LAW. 
hound to catch a hare, or a bloodhound to hunt down 
their oppressed fellow-creatures, the required varia- 
tions have always appeared. 
Now this great mass of facts, of which a mere 
sketch has been here given, are fully accounted for 
by the “Law of Variation” as laid down at the 
commencement of this paper. Universal variability— 
small in amount but in every direction, ever fluctuat- 
ing about a mean condition until made to advance in 
a given direction by “ selection,” natural or artificial, 
—is the simple basis for the indefinite modification 
of the forms of life;—partial, unbalanced, and con- 
sequently unstable modifications being produced by 
man, while those developed under the unrestrained 
action of natural laws, are at every step self-adjusted 
to external conditions by the dying out of all unad- 
justed forms, and are therefore stable and compara- 
tively permanent. To be consistent in their views, our 
opponents must maintain that every one of the varia- 
tions that have rendered possible the changes produced 
by man, have been determined at the right time and 
place by the will of the Creator. Every race produced 
by the florist or the breeder, the dog or the pigeon 
fancier, the ratcatcher, the sporting man, or the slave- 
hunter, must have been provided for by varieties occur- 
ring when wanted; and as these variations were never 
withheld, it would prove, that the sanction of an all- 
wise and all-powerful Being, has been given to that 
which the highest human minds consider to be trivial, 
mean, or debasing. ‘ 
