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(5 Before considering whether be any «Natural» Means of selection,1 & secondly. (which forms the 2d Part of this sketch) the far more important point, whether the characters & relation of animated are such as favour the idea of ‹there› «wild species» being races, descended from a common stock, as the varieties of Potato or Dahaliat1, or cattle have so descended.— let us consider probable character oft2 ‹selectedt3 races› wild varieties.t4

t1 Dahalia] misspelling t2 of] crossed by CD t3 selected] crossed by CD t4 Before considering…wild varieities.] crossed

1. This short, crossed-through passage (‹5›) we can take to have been discarded and replaced by Ms p 5. This he would have accomplished by simply turning the sheet over and starting a new page 5. However, that new start occasioned an important transition in Darwin's scientific language. For, in ‹5› he used the circumlocution 'Means of selection', which he then extended to the fairly awkward phrase '«Natural» Means of selection'. But on the new page 5, he began a new section with a new heading, and as far as is known, it was at this moment that Darwin coined a new term: 'Natural Selection'.

Transcription and apparatus copyright the American Museum of Natural History