Nature and the Bible

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: XXVI. THE THEORY OP DESCENT?Continued. Dak Win has modified the theory of descent in several ways since the year 1859, and many of those who became believers in this theory, in consequence of the impulse which he gave to it, have sought to support it by other hypotheses in addition to the working of...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: XXVI. THE THEORY OP DESCENT?Continued. Dak Win has modified the theory of descent in several ways since the year 1859, and many of those who became believers in this theory, in consequence of the impulse which he gave to it, have sought to support it by other hypotheses in addition to the working of natural and sexual selection.1 But all those who support the theory of descent unanimously assume that the separate species of plants and animals are descended from a few simple forms, that is, that there exists an unlimited mutability of species. All the careful observations which have been made hitherto go to prove that species is more or less variable, but not that its variability is unlimited. The Giessen botanist Hoffmann made experiments for years with garden plants. He gives the following as the result: 1. There are some very strong varieties which may be made permanent. They are connected with the common stock by sports, intermediate forms, or genealogically. But it has not yet been ascertained whether these varieties can be made permanent in such a manner as to prevent a return to the original form. 2. There are other varieties which cannot be made permanent, and this isthe commonest case. 3. The extent of the varieties is limited, but it differs with different plants. And Hoffmann gives this as the general result of his observations, Experience strengthens the belief that transmutation through the formation of varieties is extensive, but not unlimited; on the contrary, it is contained within clearly defined limits.l An eminent breeder, Settegast, says the same of domestic animals. There are races which are specially variable, and are therefore well suited for breeding, because their form and qualities adapt themselves easily to the objects of the breeder, which ...