Domestic breeds as an argument: artificial selection in the Origin of Species

1859 Life and health theory

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A device in the presentation of natural selection in which the argument is drawn from domestic breeds: breeds are made by man, who accumulated small differences in the direction he wanted, and what a breeder does in decades, selection does without any aim and over far longer time.

The device was applied in the first chapter of the 'Origin of Species' (1859) by the Englishman Charles Darwin: the book opens not with nature but with the farmyard and the pigeon loft. From this the notion of artificial selection is drawn ('the key is man's power of accumulative selection') and carried over to nature by analogy. Bakewell is named in the text directly, as an example of a man who altered his cattle within his own lifetime.

The move was risky: domestic breeds were the only kind of experiment available to Darwin, and his critics struck exactly there.

Why this date

The date follows the first edition of 'On the Origin of Species', published 24 November 1859. What is meant here is the book's first chapter ('Variation under Domestication') and the argument built on it, not the book as a whole and not the theory of natural selection as such.

What it grew from

• Bakewell's livestock breeding: in-and-in mating, culling and letting of sires

  influenced · Confidence: high

  Darwin got the notion of selection from the practice of animal and plant breeders rather than from nature: Evans states that his recognition of the power of selection was almost entirely due to what he learned of breeding, and Bakewell is named in the first chapter of the Origin as an example of such work.

  Dispute: Theunissen (2012) challenges the familiar picture in which the breeder showed Darwin selection. On his reading, nineteenth-century breeding was a contested and difficult field, the analogy cost Darwin considerable effort, and it worked only because he played down two techniques that breeders themselves held to be essential, the crossing of varieties and inbreeding, that is exactly the part of Bakewell's legacy that proved decisive on the Continent. Darwin's main informants were not livestock improvers but pigeon fanciers, whose methods, according to Theunissen, were not typical of breeding at large: 'the methods of his main informants, the breeders of fancy pigeons, were not representative of what went on in the breeding world at large'. And the influence, on Theunissen's account, ran both ways: Darwin's understanding of breeding practice was itself moulded by his understanding of natural selection.

  Link sources

  • L. T. Evans, Darwin's use of the analogy between artificial and natural selection, Journal of the History of Biology 17, 113-140, T. R. Gregory, Artificial Selection and Domestication, Evolution: Education and Outreach 2 (1), 5-27 (2009) (1984) Verified 20 Sep 2026

    Darwin's recognition of the power of selection in changing organisms was almost entirely due to what he learned of plant and animal breeding.

  • Bert Theunissen, Darwin and His Pigeons. The Analogy Between Artificial and Natural Selection Revisited, Journal of the History of Biology 45, 179-212 (abstract) (2012) Verified 20 Sep 2026

    Thus while his studies of domestic varieties were important for the development of the concept of natural selection, the reverse was also true: Darwin's comprehension of breeding practices was moulded by his understanding of the working of natural selection in nature.

  • Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st ed., London: John Murray, chapter I (Darwin Online, F373) (1859)

    Nevertheless I cannot doubt that this process, continued during centuries, would improve and modify any breed, in the same way as Bakewell, Collins, &c., by this very same process, only carried on more methodically, did greatly modify, even during their own lifetimes, the forms and qualities of their cattle.

  "Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.

What grew out of it

• Johannsen: pure lines, genotype and phenotype

  influenced · Confidence: medium

  The pure-line experiment was a direct test of Darwin's premise that selection, artificial or natural, changes the hereditary type by accumulating ordinary small variation; Johannsen obtained a negative result and concluded that selection only chooses among types already present.

  Dispute: Roll-Hansen speaks of 'Darwinism in the narrowest sense', that is of the theory of successive selection in general, not specifically of the first chapter of the Origin; the artificial-selection node is chosen because it was the argument from domestic breeds that asserted the accumulative power of selection, and Johannsen ran his experiment as a breeder, on cultivated beans. If the natural-selection branch gets a node of its own, the link belongs there. This is not a refutation: selection as a practice stood, the mechanism was contested.

  Link sources

  • Nils Roll-Hansen, The holist tradition in twentieth century genetics, Journal of Physiology 592 (11), 2431-2438 (2014) Verified 20 Sep 2026

    The theory of 'successive selection' was 'Darwinism in the narrowest sense'. It took as the starting point, on which selection could work, 'the familiar common variability'. In Johannsen's view, the successive selection theory was based on the idea that continuous variation, often called 'individual' or 'fluctuating', was in considerable measure inherited. This was just what he tested in his bean selection experiment, with a negative outcome.

  • Nils Roll-Hansen, The holist tradition in twentieth century genetics, Journal of Physiology 592 (11), 2431-2438 (2014) Verified 20 Sep 2026

    To sum up: Johannsen's criticism of Darwinism objected to the idea that selection as such, whether natural or artificial, was the main cause of hereditary change. In his view, selection could only choose between differences in heredity that already existed.

  • Nils Roll-Hansen, Sources of Wilhelm Johannsen's Genotype Theory, Journal of the History of Biology 42 (3), 457-493 (abstract) (2009) Verified 20 Sep 2026

    He tested and confirmed it experimentally combining the methods of biometry, as developed by Francis Galton, with the individual selection method and pedigree analysis, as developed for instance by Louis Vilmorin.

  "Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.

Node sources

• Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st ed., London: John Murray, chapter I (Darwin Online, F373) (1859) Verified 5 Oct 2026

  The key is man's power of accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; man adds them up in certain directions useful to him.

• Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st ed., London: John Murray, chapter I (Darwin Online, F373) (1859)

  Nevertheless I cannot doubt that this process, continued during centuries, would improve and modify any breed, in the same way as Bakewell, Collins, &c., by this very same process, only carried on more methodically, did greatly modify, even during their own lifetimes, the forms and qualities of their cattle.

• Bert Theunissen, Darwin and His Pigeons. The Analogy Between Artificial and Natural Selection Revisited, Journal of the History of Biology 45, 179-212 (abstract) (2012) Verified 5 Oct 2026

  The analogy between artificial selection of domestic varieties and natural selection in nature was a vital element of Darwin's argument in his Origin of Species.

"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.

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