Chap. I. 
METHODICAL SELECTION. 
33 
kind of selection is, in fact, also followed; for hardly any 
one is so careless as to allow his worst animals to breed. 
In regard to plants, there is another means of observ¬ 
ing the accumulated effects of selection—namely, by 
comparing the diversity of flowers in the different varie¬ 
ties of the same species in the flower-garden; the diversity 
of leaves, pods, or tubers, or whatever part is valued, in 
the kitchen-garden, in comparison with the flowers of the 
same varieties; and the diversity of fruit of the same 
species in the orchard, in comparison with the leaves and 
flowers of the same set of varieties. See how different 
the leaves of the cabbage are, and how extremely alike 
the flowers; how unlike the flowers of the heartsease are, 
and how alike the leaves; how much the fruit of the 
different kinds of gooseberries differ in size, colour, shape, 
and hairiness, and yet the flowers present very slight 
differences. It is not that the varieties which differ 
largely in some one point do not differ at all in other 
points; this is hardly ever, perhaps never, the case. 
The laws of correlation of growth, the importance of 
which should never be overlooked, will ensure some dif¬ 
ferences; but, as a general rule, I cannot doubt that 
the continued selection of slight variations, either in the 
leaves, the flowers, or the fruit, will produce races dif¬ 
fering from each other chiefly in these characters. 
It may be objected that the principle of selection has 
been reduced to methodical practice for scarcely more 
than three-quarters of a century; it has certainly been 
more attended to of late years, and many treatises have 
been published on the subject; and the result has been, 
in a corresponding degree, rapid and important. But 
it is very far from true that the principle is a modern 
discovery. I could give several references to the full 
acknowledgment of the importance of the principle in 
works of high antiquity. In rude and barbarous periods 
c 3 
