omestic animals and plants; many of these
variations being of no service to man, and not beneficial, far more
often injurious, to the creatures themselves? Did he ordain that the
crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary in order that the
fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fantail breeds? Did He
cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary in order that
a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to
pin down the bull for man's brutal sport? But if we give up the
principle in one case--if we do not admit that the variations of the
primeval dog were intentionally guided in order that the greyhound,
for instance, that perfect image of symmetry and vigor, might be
formed--no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that
variations, alike in nature and the result of the same general laws,
which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the
formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man
included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may
wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief, "that
variation has been led along certain beneficial lines of irrigation."
If we assume that each particular variation was from the beginning of
all time preordained, then that plasticity of organization which leads
to many injurious deviations of structure, as well as the redundant
power of reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for
existence, and as a consequence, to the natural selection or survival
of the fittest, must appear to us superfluous laws of nature. On the
other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything
and foresees everything. Thus we are brought face to face with a
difficulty as insoluble as is that of free will and predestination.

II

THE GENESIS OF A GREAT BOOK[18]

During the voyage of the _Beagle_ I had been deeply imprest by
discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals, covered
with armor like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the
manner in which closely allied animals replace one another in
proceeding southward over the Continent; and thirdly, by the South
American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos
Archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which they differ
slightly on each island of the group; none of the islands appearing to
be very ancient in a geological sense.

[Footnote 18: From Darwin's "Autobiograph