without indeed we rank as an explanation such loose
metaphors as that of De Candolle's{506}, in which the kingdom of nature
is compared to a well-covered table, and the abortive organs are
considered as put in for the sake of symmetry!

{506} The metaphor of the dishes is given in the Essay of 1842, p.
47, note 3.{Note 173}

CHAPTER X

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION

_Recapitulation._

I will now recapitulate the course of this work, more fully with respect
to the former parts, and briefly <as to> the latter. In the first
chapter we have seen that most, if not all, organic beings, when taken
by man out of their natural condition, and bred during several
generations, vary; that is variation is partly due to the direct effect
of the new external influences, and partly to the indirect effect on the
reproductive system rendering the organization of the offspring in some
degree plastic. Of the variations thus produced, man when uncivilised
naturally preserves the life, and therefore unintentionally breeds from
those individuals most useful to him in his different states: when even
semi-civilised, he intentionally separates and breeds from such
individuals. Every part of the structure seems occasionally to vary in a
very slight degree, and the extent to which all kinds of peculiarities
in mind and body, when congenital and when slowly acquired either from
external influences, from exercise, or from disuse <are inherited>, is
truly wonderful. When several breeds are once formed, then crossing is
the most fertile source of new breeds{507}. Variation must be ruled, of
course, by the health of the new race, by the tendency to return to the
ancestral forms, and by unknown laws determining the proportional
increase and symmetry of the body. The amount of variation, which has
been effected under domestication, is quite unknown in the majority of
domestic beings.

{507} Compare however Darwin's later view:--"The possibility of
making distinct races by crossing has been greatly exaggerated,"
_Origin_, Ed. i. p. 20, vi. p. 23. The author's change of opinion
was no doubt partly due to his experience in breeding pigeons.

In the second chapter it was shown that wild organisms undoubtedly vary
in some slight degree: and that the kind of variation, though much less
in degree, is similar to that of domestic organisms. It is highly
probable that every organic being, if subjected during several
g