this sketch he seems not to have been so
fully convinced of the general occurrence of variation in nature as
he afterwards became. The above passage in the text possibly
suggests that at this time he laid more stress on _sports_ or
_mutations_ than was afterwards the case.

According to nature of new conditions, so we might expect all or
majority of organisms born under them to vary in some definite way.
Further we might expect that the mould in which they are cast would
likewise vary in some small degree. But is there any means of selecting
those offspring which vary in the same manner, crossing them and keeping
their offspring separate and thus producing selected races: otherwise as
the wild animals freely cross, so must such small heterogeneous
varieties be constantly counter-balanced and lost, and a uniformity of
character [kept up] preserved. The former variation as the direct and
necessary effects of causes, which we can see can act on them, as size
of body from amount of food, effect of certain kinds of food on certain
parts of bodies &c. &c.; such new varieties may then become adapted to
those external [natural] agencies which act on them. But can varieties
be produced adapted to end, which cannot possibly influence their
structure and which it is absurd to look <at> as effects of chance. Can
varieties like some vars of domesticated animals, like almost all wild
species be produced adapted by exquisite means to prey on one animal or
to escape from another,--or rather, as it puts out of question effects
of intelligence and habits, can a plant become adapted to animals, as a
plant which cannot be impregnated without agency of insect; or hooked
seeds depending on animal's existence: woolly animals cannot have any
direct effect on seeds of plant. This point which all theories about
climate adapting woodpecker{50} to crawl <?> up trees, <illegible>
miseltoe, <sentence incomplete>. But if every part of a plant or animal
was to vary <illegible>, and if a being infinitely more sagacious than
man (not an omniscient creator) during thousands and thousands of years
were to select all the variations which tended towards certain ends ([or
were to produce causes <?> which tended to the same end]), for instance,
if he foresaw a canine animal would be better off, owing to the country
producing more hares, if he were longer legged and keener
sight,--greyhound produced{51}. If he saw that aquatic <animal would