INTRODUCTION. 



will, I think, find this plan a convenience, for, if he does not 

 doubt the conclusion or care about the details, he can easily 

 pass them over ; yet I may be permitted to say that some 

 of the discussions thus printed deserve attention, at least from 

 the professed naturalist. 



It may be useful to those who have read nothing about 

 Natural Selection, if I here give a brief sketch of the whole 

 subject and of its bearing on the origin of species. 1 This is 

 the more desirable, as it is impossible in the present work to 

 avoid many allusions to questions which will be fully discussed 

 in future volumes. 



From a remote period, in all parts of the world, man has 

 subjected many animals and plants to domestication or culture. 

 Man has no power of altering the absolute conditions of life ; 

 he cannot change the climate of any country ; he adds no new 

 element to the soil ; but he can remove an animal or plant 

 from one climate or soil to another, and give it food on which 

 it did not subsist in its natural state. It is an error to speak 

 of man " tampering with nature " and causing variability. If 

 organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, 

 man could have done nothing. 2 He unintentionally exposes 

 his animals and plants to various conditions of life, and 

 variability supervenes, which he cannot even prevent or check. 

 Consider the simple case of a plant which has been cultivated 

 during a long time in its native country, and which conse- 

 quently has not been subjected to any change of climate. It 

 has been protected to a certain extent from the competing 

 roots of plants of other kinds ; it has generally been grown in 

 manured soil, but probably not richer than that of many an 

 alluvial flat ; and lastly, it has been exposed to changes in its 

 conditions, being grown sometimes in one district and some- 

 times in another, in different soils. Under such circumstances, 



1 To any one who has attentively 

 read my ' Origin of Species ' this Intro- 

 duction will be superfluous. As I stated 

 in that work that I should soon publish 

 the facts on which the conclusions given' 

 in it were founded, I here beg permission 

 to remark that the great delay in pub- 

 lishing this first work has been caused 

 by continued ill-health. 



2 M. Pouchet has recently (' Plurality 

 of Paces,' Eng. Translat., 1864, p. 83, 

 &c.) insisted that variation under do- 

 mestication throws no light on the na- 

 tural modification of species. I cannot 

 perceive the force of his arguments, or, 

 to speak more accurately, of his asser- 

 tions to this effect. 



