Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/121

iv Although I believe, for reasons which will be given further on, that some amount of variability is a constant and necessary property of all organisms, yet there appears to be good evidence to show that changed conditions of life tend to increase it, both by a direct action on the organisation and by indirectly affecting the reproductive system. Hence the extension of civilisation, by favouring domestication under altered conditions, facilitates the process of modification. Yet this change does not seem to be an essential condition, for nowhere has the production of extreme varieties of plants and flowers been carried farther than in Japan, where careful selection continued for many generations must have been the chief factor. The effect of occasional crosses often results in a great amount of variation, but it also leads to instability of character, and is therefore very little employed in the production of fixed and well-marked races. For this purpose, in fact, it has to be carefully avoided, as it is only by isolation and pure breeding that any specially desired qualities can be increased by selection. It is for this reason that among savage peoples, whose animals run half wild, little improvement takes place; and the difficulty of isolation also explains why distinct and pure breeds of cats are so rarely met with. The wide distribution of useful animals and plants from a very remote epoch has, no doubt, been a powerful cause of modification, because the particular breed first introduced into each country has often been kept pure for many years, and has also been subjected to slight differences of conditions. It will also usually have been selected for a somewhat different purpose in each locality, and thus very distinct races would soon originate.

The important physiological effects of crossing breeds or strains, and the part this plays in the economy of nature, will be explained in a future chapter.

The examples of variation now adduced—and these might have been almost indefinitely increased—will suffice to show that there is hardly an organ or a quality in plants or animals which has not been observed to vary; and further, that whenever any of these variations have been useful to man he has