Applications of Organic Selection 181 



modations may compensate in a constantly increasing way 

 for the loss of direct utility of the character in question. 

 This is notably the case with intelligent accommodations. 

 These piece out obstructed, distorted, or partial instincts 

 or other functions, and modify the environment to secure 

 their free play or to negative their disadvantageous results. 

 This carries further the advantage which Weismann has 

 claimed in his Romanes Lecture for Intra-selection. 



(8) It is possible, indeed, that this principle may turn out 

 to be a resource in the difficult matter of the retrogressive 

 evolution of particular characters, and that in two ways : 

 (i) by the fostering of variations antagonistic to the organ 

 or function which is undergoing decay, as is pointed out 

 under heading (5) just above (the case of intelligent action 

 superseding instinctive) ; and (2) by the fostering of a 

 function of greater utility, which gradually replaces a 

 lesser, in connection with the same organ or structure. 

 For example, the evolving conformation of the skull to 

 enclose a large brain, with growing intelligence, may 

 have required the reduction of the biting and ear-moving 

 muscles and the essential modification of their attachment 

 to the bones, which became possible with the reduced 

 utility of movable ears and powerful jaws, as intelligent 

 accommodation advanced and replaced brute force. 



Furthermore, cases of reversed selection are made pos- 

 sible under the same fostering or life-sustaining accommo- 

 dation, as in the case of transplantation or removal to a 

 new environment, and then again back to the old (see the 

 case of plants in 4 above, and of sheep below, Chapter 

 XIV. i). A similar result would show itself under great 

 natural environmental change ; and reversed selection, if 

 only partial or temporary, would leave vestigial or partially 



