Chap. L] UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. 43 



centuries or thousands of years to improve or modify 

 most of our plants up to their present standard of 

 usefulness to man, we can understand how it is that 

 neither Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, nor any other 

 region inhabited by quite uncivilised man, has afforded 

 us a single plant worth culture. It is not that these 

 countries, so rich in species, do not by a strange chance 

 possess the aboriginal stocks of any useful plants, but 

 that the native plants have not been improved by 

 continued selection up to a standard of perfection 

 comparable with that acquired by the plants in 

 countries anciently civilised. 



In regard to the domestic animals kept by uncivilised 

 man, it should not be overlooked that they almost 

 always have to struggle for their own food, at least 

 during certain seasons. And in two countries very 

 differently circumstanced, individuals of the same 

 species, having slightly different constitutions or 

 structure, would often succeed better in the one country 

 than in the other; and thus by a process of "natural 

 selection," as will hereafter be more fully explained, 

 two sub-breeds might be formed. This, perhaps, partly 

 explains why the varieties kept by savages, as has been 

 remarked by some authors, have more of the character 

 of true species than the varieties kept in civilised 

 countries. 



On the view here given of the important part which 

 selection by man has played, it becomes at once 

 obvious, how it is that our domestic races show 

 adaptation in their structure or in their habits to man's 

 wants or fancies. We can, I think, further understand 

 the frequently abnormal character of our domestic races, 

 and likewise their differences being so great in external 



