Several centuries of guinea-pig time went by; generation after
generation of healthy guinea-pigs passed under his modifying hands; and
after some five years he had in one small yard a fine group of the
descendants of his gall-fed pair, and in another the offspring of the
trained ones; nimble, swift, as different from the first as the
razor-backed pig of the forest from the fatted porkers in the sty. He
set them to race--the young untrained specimens of these distant
cousins--and the hare ran away from the tortoise completely.
Great zoologists and biologists came to see him, studied, fingered,
poked, and examined the records; argued and disbelieved--and saw them
run.
"It is natural selection," they said. "It profited them to run."
"Not at all," said he. "They were fed and cared for alike, with no gain
from running."
"It was artificial selection," they said. "You picked out the speediest
for your training."
"Not at all," said he. "I took always any healthy pair from the trained
parents and from the untrained ones--quite late in life, you understand,
as guinea-pigs go."
Anyhow, there were the pigs; and he took little specialized piglets
scarce weaned, and pitted them against piglets of the untrained lot--and
they outran them in a race for "Mama." Wherefore Mr. Ross Warden found
himself famous of a sudden; and all over the scientific world the
Wiesmanian controversy raged anew.
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