ole economy of the race. It creates as it were a new
animal, one of superior powers, and which will necessarily increase in
numbers and outlive those inferior to it.

Again, in the domesticated animal all variations have an equal chance of
continuance; and those which would decidedly render a wild animal unable
to compete with its fellows and continue its existence are no
disadvantage whatever in a state of domesticity. Our quickly fattening
pigs, short-legged sheep, pouter pigeons, and poodle dogs could never
have come into existence in a state of nature, because the very first
step towards such inferior forms would have led to the rapid extinction
of the race; still less could they now exist in competition with their
wild allies. The great speed but slight endurance of the race horse, the
unwieldy strength of the ploughman's team, would both be useless in a
state of nature. If turned wild on the pampas, such animals would
probably soon become extinct, or under favourable circumstances might
each lose those extreme qualities which would never be called into
action, and in a few generations would revert to a common type, which
must be that in which the various powers and faculties are so
proportioned to each other as to be best adapted to procure food and
secure safety,--that in which by the full exercise of every part of his
organization the animal can alone continue to live. Domestic varieties,
when turned wild, _must_ return to something near the type of the
original wild stock, _or become altogether extinct_.

We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature
can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic
animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance
of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to
apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular,
artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never
can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether
on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion
of faculties, that true balance of organization, by means of which alone
an animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and
continue its race.

The hypothesis of Lamarck--that progressive changes in species have been
produced by the attempts of animals to increase the development of their
own organs, and thus modify their structure and habits