334 THE LIMIIS OF NATUEAL SELECTION 



impress upon us, that "natural selection" has no power 

 to produce absolute perfection but only relative perfec- 

 tion, no power to advance any being much beyond 

 his fellow beings, but only just so much beyond them 

 as to enable it to survive them in the struggle for 

 existence. Still less has it any power to produce 

 modifications which are in any degree injurious to its 

 possessor, and Mr. Darwin frequently uses the strong 

 expression, that a single case of this kind would be 

 fatal to his theory. If, therefore, we find in man any 

 characters, which all the evidence we can obtain goes 

 to show would have been actually injurious to him on 

 their first appearance, they could not possibly have 

 been produced by natural selection. ' Neither could 

 any specially developed organ have been so produced 

 if it had been merely useless to him, or if its use were 

 not proportionate to its degree of development. Such 

 cases as these would prove, that some other law, or 

 some other power, than " natural selection " had been 

 at work. But if, further, we could see that these 

 very modifications, though hurtful or useless at the 

 time when they first appeared, became in the highest 

 degree useful at a much later period, and are now 

 essential to the full moral and intellectual development 

 of human nature, we should then infer the action of 

 mind, foreseeing the future and preparing for it, just 

 as surely as we do, when we see the breeder set himself 

 to work with the determination to produce a definite 

 improvement in some cultivated plant or domestic 

 animal. I would further remark that this enquiry is 



