Chap. IV. 
NATUEAL SELECTION. 
83 
them could anyhow be improved; for in all countries, 
the natives have been so far conquered by naturalised 
})roductions, that they have allowed foreigners to take 
firm possession of the land. And as foreigners have 
thus everywhere beaten some of the natives, we may 
safely conclude that the natives might have been modi¬ 
fied with advantage, so as to have better resisted such 
intruders. 
As man can produce and certainly has produced a 
great result by his methodical and unconscious means 
of selection, what may not Nature effect ? Man can act 
only on external and visible characters: Nature cares 
nothing for appearances, except in so far as they may 
be useful to any being. She can act on every internal 
organ, on every shade of constitutional difference, on the 
whole machinery of life. Man selects only for his own 
good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends. 
Every selected character is fully exercised by her; and 
the being is placed under well-suited conditions of life. 
Man keeps the natives of many climates in the same 
country; he seldom exercises each selected character 
in some peculiar and fitting manner; he feeds a long 
and a short beaked pigeon on the same food; he does 
not exercise a long-backed or long-legged quadruped in 
any peculiar manner; he exposes sheep with long and 
short wool to the same climate. He does not allow the 
most vigorous males to struggle for the females. He 
does not rigidly destroy all inferior animals, but protects 
during each varying season, as far as lies in his power, 
all his productions. He often begins his selection by 
some half-monstrous form; or at least by some modifi¬ 
cation prominent enough to catch his eye, or to be plainly 
useful to him. Under nature, the slightest difference 
of structure or constitution may well turn the nicely- 
balanced scale in the struggle for life> and so be pre- 
