APPENDIX. 



385 



turely destroyed. This principle is in constant action, it 

 regulates the colour, the figure, the capacities, and in- 

 stincts ; those individuals of each species, whose colour 

 and covering are best suited to concealment or protection 

 from enemies, or defence from vicissitude and inclemen- 

 cies of climate, whose figure is best accommodated to 

 health, strength, defence, and support ; whose capacities 

 and instincts can best regulate the physical energies to 

 self-advantage according to cu'cumstances — in such im- 

 mense waste of primary and youthful life, those only 

 come forward to maturity from the strict ordeal by which 

 Nature tests their adaptation to her standard of perfec- 

 tion and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction. 



From the unremitting operation of this law acting in 

 concert with the tendency which the progeny have to 

 take the more particular qualities of the parents, together 

 with the connected sexual system in vegetables, and in- 

 stinctive limitation to its own kind in animals, a consi- 

 derable uniformity of figure, colom*, and character, is in- 

 duced, constituting species ; the breed gradually acquiring 

 the very best possible adaptation of these to its condition 

 which it is susceptible of, and when alteration of circum- 

 stance occurs, thus changing in character to suit these 

 as far as its nature is susceptible of change. 



This circumstance-adaptive law, operating upon the 

 slight but continued natural disposition to sport in the 

 progeny (seedling variety), does not preclude the supposed 

 influence which volition or sensation may have over the 

 configuration of the body. To examine into the disposi- 



Bb 



