VI 
DIFFICULTIES AND OBJECTIONS 
131 
the whole of the sixth and seventh chapters of the last edition 
of The Origin of Species, in which these and many other cases 
are discussed in considerable detail. 
Useless or non-aclaptive Characters. 
Many naturalists seem to be of opinion that a considerable 
number of the characters which distinguish species are of no 
service whatever to their possessors, and therefore cannot have 
been produced or increased by natural selection. Professors 
Broun and Broca have urged this objection on the continent. 
In America, Dr. Cope, the well-known palieontologist, has long 
since put forth the same objection, declaring that non-adaptive 
characters are as numerous as those which are adaptive ; but 
he (litters completely from most who hold the same general 
opinion in considering that they occur chiefly “ in the 
characters of the classes, orders, families, and other higher 
groups;” and the objection, therefore, is quite distinct from 
that in which it is urged that “ specific characters are mostly 
useless. More recently, Professor G. J. Romanes has urged this 
difficulty in his paper on “ Physiological Selection ” (Journ. 
Linn. Soc., vol. xix. pp. 338, 344). He says that the characters 
“ which serve to distinguish allied species are frequently, if 
not usually, of a kind with which natural selection can have 
had nothing to do,” being without any utilitarian significance. 
Again he speaks of “ the enormous number,” and further on of 
“ the innumerable multitude ” of specific peculiarities which 
are useless; and he finally declares that the question needs no 
further arguing, “because in the later editions of his works 
Mr. Darwin freely acknowledges that a large proportion of 
specific distinctions must be conceded to be useless to the 
species presenting them.” 
I have looked in vain in Mr. Darwin’s works to find any 
such acknowledgment, and I think Mr. Romanes has not 
sufficiently distinguished between “ useless characters ” and 
“useless specific distinctions.” On referring to all the passages 
indicated by him I find that, in regard to specific characters, 
Mr. Darwin is very cautious in admitting inutility. His 
most pronounced “admissions” on this question are the follow¬ 
ing : “ But when, from the nature of the organism and of 
the conditions, modifications have been induced which are 
