Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

290 CREATION BY LAW.
hound to catch a hare, or a bloodhound to hunt down
their oppressed fellow-creatures, the required variations have always appeared.
Now this great mass of facts, of which a mere
sketch has been here given, are fully accounted for
by the " Law of Variation" as laid down at the
commencement of this paper. Universal variabilitysmall in amount but in every direction, ever fluctuating about a mean condition until made to advance in
a given direction by " selection," natural or artificial,
-is the simple basis for the indefinite modification
of the forms of life; —partial, unbalanced, and consequently unstable modifications being produced by
man, while those developed under the unrestrained
action of natural laws, are at every step self-adjusted
to external conditions by the dying out of all unadjusted forms, and are therefore stable and comparatively permanent. To be consistent in their views, our
opponents must maintain that every one of the variations that have rendered possible the changes produced
by man, have been determined at the right time and
place by the will of the Creator. Every race produced
by the florist or the breeder, the dog or the pigeon
fancier, the ratcatcher, the sporting man, or the slavehunter, must have been provided for by varieties occurring when wanted; and as these variations were never
withheld, it would prove, that the sanction of an allwise and all-powerful Being, has been given to that
which the highest human minds consider to be trivial,
mean, or debasing.