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The dogs and the pigeons and the cattle are admirably-
drawn, and prove quite conclusively the power of Artificial
Selection. The perspective of the drawings is not, how
ever, as Mr. Romanes says, exactly what it should be, and
so some of the animals look larger than they actually are.
The perspective of the animals is rather at fault, I am
inclined to think, in the logical argument that they adorn.
They are put in the foreground on the implication that
they are the outcome of a process precisely analogous
(barring one item) to that of Natural Selection. We
admit that the drawings may rightfully be regarded “ as
an overwhelming proof of the efficacy of the selective
principle in the modification of organic types.” We deny
the assertion that in these typical proofs of the efficacy of
Artificial Selection we have the strongest conceivable
testimony to the power of Natural Selection.
But not only .does Mr. Romanes exhibit the products of
Artificial Selection as the proofs of the power of Natural
Selection, although the processes are so different, but he
also affirms that the results of Natural Selection must be
much greater than those of Artificial Selection. “Artificial
Selection, notwithstanding the many and marvellous re
sults which it has accomplished, can only be regarded as
a feeble imitation of Natural Selection, which must act
with so much greater vigilance and through much im
mensely greater periods of time.” But in a very limited
period of time Artificial Selection can work the most
marvellous transformation, so that the cattle-breeder and
the pigeon-fancier have been said to wield a magician’s
wand. If the process is marvellously successful in so
short a time, one does not see what else there is to be
gained by immensely greater periods of time—when the
transmutation is once completed. As for the assertion
that Natural Selection must act with so much greater