In social animals it will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the community; if each in consequence profits by the selected change.
But in the case of an island, or of a country partly surrounded by barriers, into which new and better adapted forms could not freely enter, we should then have places in the economy of nature which would assuredly be better filled up, if some of the original inhabitants were in some manner modified; for, had the area been open to immigration, these same places would have been seized on by intruders.
No country can be named in which all the native inhabitants are now so perfectly adapted to each other and to the physical conditions under which they live, that none of them could anyhow be improved; for in all countries, the natives have been so far conquered by naturalised productions, that they have allowed foreigners to take firm possession of the land.
Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far 'truer' in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship?
Thus I can understand how a flower and a bee might slowly become, either simultaneously or one after the other, modified and adapted in the most perfect manner to each other, by the continued preservation of individuals presenting mutual and slightly favourable deviations of structure.
"Dare say he may be; never was much
adapted to anything that I set him about, I'll be bound."
In the first, the qualifications best
adapted to uniting the suffrages of the party, will be more considered than those which fit the person for the station.
I have indeed observed the same disposition among most of the mathematicians I have known in Europe, although I could never discover the least analogy between the two sciences; unless those people suppose, that because the smallest circle has as many degrees as the largest, therefore the regulation and management of the world require no more abilities than the handling and turning of a globe; but I rather take this quality to spring from a very common infirmity of human nature, inclining us to be most curious and conceited in matters where we have least concern, and for which we are least
adapted by study or nature.
He remembered some of the costumes he had seen in Paris, and he
adapted one of them, getting his effect from a combination of violent, unusual colours.
Past the veranda they raced, pouring a deadly fire into the kneeling Waziri who discharged their volley of arrows from behind their long, oval shields--shields well
adapted, perhaps, to stop a hostile arrow, or deflect a spear; but futile, quite, before the leaden missiles of the riflemen.
Nike's FitAdapt lacing system uses a midfoot motor to carry out the lacing process for wearers, which has previously been used on other trainers such as the Nike
Adapt BB.
The new
Adapt Huarache has a midfoot FitAdapt motor that adjusts the fit of the shoes by tightening or loosening the laces.