Chap. IV. 
DIVERGENCE OF CHARACTER. 
Ill 
instances could be given showing liow quickly new breeds 
of cattle, sheep, and other animals, and varieties of 
flowers, take the place of older and inferior kinds. In 
Yorkshire, it is historically known that the ancient black 
cattle were displaced by the long-horns, and that these 
were swept away by the short-horns ” (I quote the 
words of an agricultural writer) as if by some mur¬ 
derous pestilence.” 
Divergence of Character ,—The principle, which I have 
designated by this term, is of high importance on my 
theory, and explains, as I believe, several important 
facts. In the first place, varieties, even strongly- 
marked ones, though having somewhat of the character 
of species—as is shown by the hopeless doubts in many 
cases how to rank them—yet certainly differ from each 
other far less than do good and distinct species. Never¬ 
theless, according to my view, varieties are species in 
the process of formation, or are, as I have called them, 
incipient species. How, then, does the lesser difference 
between varieties become augmented into the greater 
difference between species ? That this does habitually 
happen, we must infer from most of the innumerable 
species throughout nature presenting well-marked dif¬ 
ferences ; whereas varieties, the supposed prototypes 
and parents of future well-marked species, present slight 
and ill-defined differences. Mere chance, as we may 
call it, might cause one variety to differ in some cha¬ 
racter from its parents, and the offspring of this variety 
again to differ from its parent in the very same cha¬ 
racter and in a greater degree; but this alone would 
never account for so habitual and large an amount of 
difference as that between varieties of the same species 
and species of the same genus. 
As has always been my practice, let us seek light on 
