Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/104

82 last edition of The Origin of Species was prepared; and it is clear that Mr. Darwin himself did not fully recognise the enormous amount of variability that actually exists. This is indicated by his frequent reference to the extreme slowness of the changes for which variation furnishes the materials, and also by his use of such expressions as the following: "A variety when once formed must again, perhaps after a long interval of time, vary or present individual differences of the same favourable nature as before" (Origin, p. 66). And again, after speaking of changed conditions "affording a better chance of the occurrence of favourable variations," he adds: "Unless such occur natural selection can do nothing" (Origin, p. 64). These expressions are hardly consistent with the fact of the constant and large amount of variation, of every part, in all directions, which evidently occurs in each generation of all the more abundant species, and which must afford an ample supply of favourable variations whenever required; and they have been seized upon and exaggerated by some writers as proofs of the extreme difficulties in the way of the theory. It is to show that such difficulties do not exist, and in the full conviction that an adequate knowledge of the facts of variation affords the only sure foundation for the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, that this chapter has been written.