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

CREATION BY LA W. 291
This appears to be a complete answer to the theory,
that variation sufficient in amount to be accumulated
in a given direction must be the direct act of the
Creative Mind, but it is also sufficiently condemned
by being so entirely unnecessary. The facility with
which man obtains new races, depends chiefly upon
the number of individuals he can procure to select
from. When hundreds of florists or breeders are all
aiming at the same object, the work of change goes on
rapidly. But a common species in nature contains a
thousand- or a million-fold more individuals than any
domestic race; and survival of the fittest must unerringly preserve all that vary in the right direction,
not only in obvious characters but in minute details,
not only in external but in internal organs; so that
if the materials are sufficient for the needs of man,
there can be no want of them to fulfil the grand purpose of keeping up a supply of modified organisms,
exactly adapted to the changed conditions that are
always occurring in the inorganic world.
The Objection that there are Limits to Variation.
Having now, I believe, fairly answered the chief objections of the Duke of Argyll, I proceed to notice one
or two of those adduced in an able and argumentative
essay on the " Origin of Species " in the North British
Review for July, 1867. The writer first attempts to
prove that there are strict limits to variation. When
we begin to select variations in any one direction, the
process is comparatively rapid, but after a considerable
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