ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL SELECTION 51 



life bring to the front variations previously useless, a 

 slight change often causing great results. 



The fittest to survive is not necessarily the one 

 most perfect ideally, but rather the one best adapted 

 to, and most in harmony with, the environment at 

 the time. To be too far ahead of the times is far 

 more fatal, as regards worldly prospects in human 

 society, than to be conspicuously behind them ; for 

 in the latter case the individual is pitied and allowed 

 the crumbs of charity ; in the former he is regarded 

 with suspicion and starved. This may constitute a 

 consoling thought to those who are temporarily out 

 in the cold, and who see the place they covet occupied 

 by manifestly inferior men. 



Comparison of Natural and Artificial Selec- 

 tion. — In comparing natural with artificial selection 

 we meet with the same principles, and yet domestic 

 races differ from natural ones. The reason of this 

 l'is that man selects and propagates modifications 

 \solely for his own advantage or pleasure, and not 

 yor the creature's benefit ; he always tends to 

 (exaggerate, to go to the extreme point of selecting 

 Hiseful or pleasing qualities. Races of animals are 

 thus produced which would be incapable of indepen- 

 dent existence; for instance, the prize-pig, which has 

 to be fed with a spoon like a baby, would have a 

 poor chance of existence in the wilderness ; and races 

 such as the Italian greyhound, the Fantail pigeon, 

 hornless bulls, or the bull-dog of our dog shows, could 

 not survive unless artificially protected. 



Artificially-bred animals and plants are in fact 

 in a condition of unstable equilibrium, and have a 



