The preceding statements, as to the great amount of variation occurring in animals and plants, do not prove that all species vary to the same extent, or even vary at all, but, merely, that a considerable number of species in every class, order, and family do so vary. It will have been observed that the examples of great variability have all been taken from common species, or species which have a wide range and are abundant in individuals. Now Mr. Darwin concludes, from an elaborate examination of the floras and faunas of several distinct regions, that common, wide ranging species, as a rule, vary most, while those that are confined to special districts and are therefore comparatively limited in number of individuals vary least. By a similar comparison it is shown that species of large genera vary more than species of small genera. These facts explain, to some extent, why the opinion has been so prevalent that variation is very limited in amount and exceptional in character. For naturalists of the old school, and all mere collectors, were interested in species in proportion to their rarity, and would often have in their collections a larger number of specimens of a rare species than of a species that was very common. Now as these rare species do really vary much less than the common species, and in many cases hardly vary at all, it was very natural that a belief in the fixity of species should prevail. It is not, however, as we shall see presently, the rare, but the common and widespread species which become the parents of new forms, and thus the non-variability of any number of rare or local species offers no difficulty whatever in the way of the theory of evolution.
Concluding Remarks.
We have now shown in some detail, at the risk of being tedious, that individual variability is a general character of all common and widespread species of animals or plants; and, further, that this variability extends, so far as we know, to every part and organ, whether external or internal, as well as to every mental faculty. Yet more important is the fact that each part or organ varies to a considerable extent independently of other parts. Again, we have shown, by abundant evidence, that the variation that occurs is very large in amount—usually reaching 10 or 20, and sometimes even 25 per cent of the average size of the varying part; while not one or two only, but from 5 to 10 per cent of the specimens examined exhibit nearly as large an amount of variation. These facts have been brought clearly before the reader by means of numerous diagrams, drawn to scale and exhibiting the actual variations in inches, so that there can be no possibility of denying either their generality or their amount. The importance of this full exposition of the subject will be seen in future chapters, when we shall frequently have to refer to the facts here set forth, especially when we deal with the various theories of recent writers and the criticisms that have been made of the Darwinian theory.
A full exposition of the facts of variation among wild animals and plants is the more necessary, because comparatively few of them were published in Mr. Darwin's works, while the more important have only been made known since the last edition of The Origin of Species was prepared; and it is clear that Mr. Darwin himself did not fully recognise the enormous amount of variability that actually exists. This is indicated by his frequent reference to the extreme slowness of the changes for which variation furnishes the materials, and also by his use of such expressions as the following: "A variety when once formed must again, perhaps after a long interval of time, vary or present individual differences of the same favourable nature as before" (Origin, p. 66). And again, after speaking of changed conditions "affording a better chance of the occurrence of favourable variations," he adds: "Unless such occur natural selection can do nothing" (Origin, p. 64). These expressions are hardly consistent with the fact of the constant and large amount of variation, of every part, in all directions, which evidently occurs in each generation of all the more abundant species, and which must afford an ample supply of favourable variations whenever required; and they have been seized upon and exaggerated by some writers as proofs of the extreme difficulties in the way of the theory. It is to show that such difficulties do not exist, and in the full conviction that an adequate knowledge of the facts of variation affords the only sure foundation for the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, that this chapter has been written.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Foraminifera, preface, p. x.
[17] United States Geological Survey of the Territories, 1874.
[18] Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London, 1875, p. vii.
[19] Ann. des Sci. Nat., tom. xvi. p. 50.
[20] See Winter Birds of Florida, p. 206, Table F.