Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/348

 of the species or race, yet he clearly saw that it was not always and necessarily advantageous. He says: "The most important conclusion at which I have arrived is, that the mere act of intercrossing by itself does no good. The good depends on the individuals which are crossed differing slightly in constitution, owing to their progenitors having been subjected during several generations to slightly different conditions. This conclusion, as we shall hereafter see, is closely connected with various important physiological problems, such as the benefit derived from slight changes in the conditions of life." Mr. Darwin has also adduced much direct evidence proving that slight changes in the conditions of life are beneficial to both animals and plants, maintaining or restoring their vigour and fertility in the same way as a favourable cross seems to restore it. It is, I believe, by a careful consideration of these two classes of facts that we shall find the clue to the labyrinth in which this subject has appeared to involve us.

Just as we have seen that intercrossing is not necessarily good, we shall be forced to admit that close interbreeding is not necessarily bad. Our finest breeds of domestic animals have been thus produced, and by a careful statistical inquiry Mr. George Darwin has shown that the most constant and long-continued intermarriages among the British aristocracy have produced no prejudicial results. The rabbits on Porto Santo are all the produce of a single female; they have lived on the same small island for 470 years, and they still abound there and appear to be vigorous and healthy (see p. 161).

We have, however, on the other hand, overwhelming evidence that in many cases, among our domestic animals and cultivated plants, close interbreeding does produce bad results, and the apparent contradiction may perhaps be explained on the same general principles, and under similar limitations, as were found to be necessary in defining the value of intercrossing. It appears probable, then, that it is not interbreeding in itself that is hurtful, but interbreeding without