In rejecting the doctrines of his predecessors, Darwin slowly adopted a definite point of view as to the nature of this mysterious phenomenon of variation. The facts that filled his notebooks and whirled through his mind seemed to show that the means of modification were a product of the animal or plant itself, not of its surroundings. In other words, the organism adapted itself to the environment; it was not the environment that worked its will upon the organism. Certainly this was the case in artificial selection by breeders; these men did not cause variations to appear. Nature herself produced variations, yet man could (and did) select for his own purposes the most favorable variations that occurred. Worlds Great Thinkers pg 226 by E. R. Trattner
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:54:45 +0000
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