The Conditions of Existence as Affecting the Perpetuation of Living Beings | Page 6

return to their primitive stock."
This is very commonly assumed to be a fact, and it is an argument that
is commonly brought forward as conclusive; but if you will take the
trouble to inquire into it rather closely, I think you will find that it is not
worth very much. The first question of course is, Do they thus return to
the primitive stock? And commonly as the thing is assumed and
accepted, it is extremely difficult to get anything like good evidence of
it. It is constantly said, for example, that if domesticated Horses are
turned wild, as they have been in some parts of Asia Minor and South
America, that they return at once to the primitive stock from which
they were bred. But the first answer that you make to this assumption is,
to ask who knows what the primitive stock was; and the second answer
is, that in that case the wild Horses of Asia Minor ought to be exactly
like the wild Horses of South America. If they are both like the same
thing, they ought manifestly to be like each other! The best authorities,

however, tell you that it is quite different. The wild Horse of Asia is
said to be of a dun colour, with a largish head, and a great many other
peculiarities; while the best authorities on the wild Horses of South
America tell you that there is no similarity between their wild Horses
and those of Asia Minor; the cut of their heads is very different, and
they are commonly chestnut or bay-coloured. It is quite clear, therefore,
that as by these facts there ought to have been two primitive stocks,
they go for nothing in support of the assumption that races recur to one
primitive stock, and so far as this evidence is concerned, it falls to the
ground.
Suppose for a moment that it were so, and that domesticated races,
when turned wild, did return to some common condition, I cannot see
that this would prove much more than that similar conditions are likely
to produce similar results; and that when you take back domesticated
animals into what we call natural conditions, you do exactly the same
thing as if you carefully undid all the work you had gone through, for
the purpose of bringing the animal from its wild to its domesticated
state. I do not see anything very wonderful in the fact, if it took all that
trouble to get it from a wild state, that it should go back into its original
state as soon as you removed the conditions which produced the
variation to the domesticated form. There is an important fact, however,
forcibly brought forward by Mr. Darwin, which has been noticed in
connection with the breeding of domesticated pigeons; and it is, that
however different these breeds of pigeons may be from each other, and
we have already noticed the great differences in these breeds, that if,
among any of those variations, you chance to have a blue pigeon turn
up, it will be sure to have the black bars across the wings, which are
characteristic of the original wild stock, the Rock Pigeon.
Now, this is certainly a very remarkable circumstance; but I do not see
myself how it tells very strongly either one way or the other. I think, in
fact, that this argument in favour of recurrence to the primitive type
might prove a great deal too much for those who so constantly bring it
forward. For example, Mr. Darwin has very forcibly urged, that nothing
is commoner than if you examine a dun horse--and I had an opportunity
of verifying this illustration lately, while in the islands of the West
Highlands, where there are a great many dun horses--to find that horse
exhibit a long black stripe down his back, very often stripes on his

shoulder, and very often stripes on his legs. I, myself, saw a pony of
this description a short time ago, in a baker's cart, near Rothesay, in
Bute: it had the long stripe down the back, and stripes on the shoulders
and legs, just like those of the Ass, the Quagga, and the Zebra. Now, if
we interpret the theory of recurrence as applied to this case, might it not
be said that here was a case of a variation exhibiting the characters and
conditions of an animal occupying something like an intermediate
position between the Horse, the Ass, the Quagga, and the Zebra, and
from which these had been developed? In the same way with regard
even to Man. Every anatomist will tell you that there is nothing
commoner, in dissecting the human body, than to meet with what are
called muscular variations--that is, if you dissect two bodies very
carefully, you will