Conditions of Existence as Affecting the Perpetuation of Living Beings
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Conditions of Existence as Affecting the Perpetuation of Living Beings - Thomas Henry Huxley
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The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, by Thomas H. Huxley
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Title: The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings
Lecture V. (of V.), Lectures To Working Men, at the Museum
of Practical Geology, 1863, On Darwin's work: "Origin of
Species".
Author: Thomas H. Huxley
Release Date: January 4, 2009 [EBook #2925]
Last Updated: January 22, 2013
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE ***
Produced by Amy E. Zelmer, and David Widger
THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE AS
AFFECTING THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS
Lecture V. (of VI.), Lectures To Working Men
, at the Museum of Practical Geology, 1863, On Darwin's work: Origin of Species
.
By Thomas H. Huxley
IN the last Lecture I endeavoured to prove to you that, while, as a general rule, organic beings tend to reproduce their kind, there is in them, also, a constantly recurring tendency to vary—to vary to a greater or to a less extent. Such a variety, I pointed out to you, might arise from causes which we do not understand; we therefore called it spontaneous; and it might come into existence as a definite and marked thing, without any gradations between itself and the form which preceded it. I further pointed out, that such a variety having once arisen, might be perpetuated to some extent, and indeed to a very marked extent, without any direct interference, or without any exercise of that process which we called selection. And then I stated further, that by such selection, when exercised artificially—if you took care to breed only from those forms which presented the same peculiarities of any variety which had arisen in this manner—the variation might be perpetuated, as far as we can see, indefinitely.
The next question, and it is an important one for us, is this: Is there any limit to the amount of variation from the primitive stock which can be produced by this process of selective breeding? In considering this question, it will be useful to class the characteristics, in respect of which organic beings vary, under two heads: we may consider structural characteristics, and we may consider physiological characteristics.
In the first place, as regards structural characteristics, I endeavoured to show you, by the skeletons which I had upon the table, and by reference to a great many well-ascertained facts, that the different breeds of Pigeons, the Carriers, Pouters, and Tumblers, might vary in any of their internal and important structural characters to a very great degree; not only might there be changes in the proportions of the skull, and the characters of the feet and beaks, and so on; but that there might be an absolute difference in the number of the vertebrae of the back, as in the sacral vertebrae of the Pouter; and so great