80 APPENDIX. 



body. Of what advantage would it be to the whale if 

 his hinder leg, now concealed in a mass of flesh and no 

 longer protruding beyond the skin, should still be 

 reduced one or several centimetres in size? (Spencer.) 

 If the minus variations have no selective value, how 

 can the upper limit of the variational field be con- 

 stantly displaced downwards, as actually happens? 

 It is unquestionable but something different from per- 

 sonal selection must come here co-determinatively 

 into play. 



V. HISTORICAL REMARKS CONCERNING THE ULTIMATE 



VITAL UNITS. 



(For this Appendix which is marked "Appendix 

 V." in the German edition of Germinal Selection see 

 the footnote at page 40.) 



VI. THE INITIAL STAGES OF USEFUL MODIFICATIONS. 



In characterising as "least" weighty the old objec- 

 tion that the variations are too small at the start to be 

 useful and to be selected, I find myself diametrically 

 opposed to many writers of the present day, who have 

 taken up with renewed vigor this old stumbling block 

 to the principle of selection. Bateson 1 regards the 

 deficient proof of the utility of initial stages as the 

 most serious objection that can be made to natural se- 

 lection. New organs must in the necessity of the case 

 have first been imperfect ; how, then, could they have 

 been selected since imperfect organs cannot be useful ? 

 Answers from various quarters have already been 



1 Materials for the Study of Variation with Especial Re- 

 gard to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species, London, 1895, 

 p. 1 6. 



