[On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin]@TWC D-Link book
On the Origin of Species

CHAPTER I
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The whole organisation seems to have become plastic, and departs in a slight degree from that of the parental type.
Any variation which is not inherited is unimportant for us.

But the number and diversity of inheritable deviations of structure, both those of slight and those of considerable physiological importance, are endless.

Dr.Prosper Lucas' treatise, in two large volumes, is the fullest and the best on this subject.

No breeder doubts how strong is the tendency to inheritance; that like produces like is his fundamental belief: doubts have been thrown on this principle only by theoretical writers.

When any deviation of structure often appears, and we see it in the father and child, we cannot tell whether it may not be due to the same cause having acted on both; but when among individuals, apparently exposed to the same conditions, any very rare deviation, due to some extraordinary combination of circumstances, appears in the parent--say, once among several million individuals--and it reappears in the child, the mere doctrine of chances almost compels us to attribute its reappearance to inheritance.


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