GERMINAL SELECTION. 39 



s 



and I enunciated precisely on this account the princi- 

 ple of panmixia. Now, although this, as I still have 

 no reason for doubting, is a perfectly correct principle, 

 which really does have an essential and indispensable 

 share in the process of retrogression, still it is not 

 alone sufficient for a full explanation of the phe- 

 nomena. My opponents, in advancing this objection, 

 were right, to the extent indicated and as I expressly 

 acknowledge, although they were unable to substitute 

 anything positive in its stead or to render my explana- 

 tion complete. The very fact of the cessation of con- 

 trol over the organ is sufficient to explain its degenera- 

 tion, that is, its deterioration, the disharmony of its 

 parts, but not the fact which actually and always 

 occurs where an organ has become useless viz., its 

 gradual and unceasing diminution continuing for 

 thousands and thousands of years culminating in its 

 final and absolute effacement. 



If, now, neither the selection of persons nor the ces- 

 sation of personal selection can explain this phenom- 

 enon, assuredly some other principle must be the effi- 

 cient cause here, and this cause I believe I have indi- 

 cated in an essay written at the close of last year and 

 only recently published. 1 I call it germinal selection. 



The principle in question reposes on the application, 

 made some fifteen years ago by Wilhelm Roux, of the 

 principle of selection to the parts of organisms on the 

 struggle of the parts, as he called it. If such a strug- 

 gle obtains among organs, tissues, and cells, it must 

 also obtain between the smallest and for us invisible 

 vital particles, not only between those of the body- 

 cells, strictly so called, but also between those of the 



ye Gedanken sur Vererbungsfrage, Jena, 1895, 



