132 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
unimportant for the welfare of the species, they may be, and 
apparently often have been, transmitted in nearly the same 
state to numerous, otherwise modified , descendants ” (Origin , p. 
175). The words I have here italicised clearly show that 
such characters are usually not “ specific,” in the sense that 
they are such as distinguish species from each other, but are 
found in numerous allied species. Again : “ Thus a large 
yet undefined extension may safely be given to the direct and 
indirect results of natural selection; but I now admit, after 
reading the essay of Nageli on plants, and the remarks by 
various authors with respect to animals, more especially those 
recently made by Professor Broca, that in the earlier editions 
of my Origin of Species I perhaps attributed too much to the 
action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest. I 
have altered the fifth edition of the Origin so as to confine my 
remarks to adaptive changes of structure, but I am convinced , 
from the light gained during even the last few years, that very 
many structures which now appear to us useless, will hereafter be 
proved to be useful, and will therefore come within the range of 
natural selection. Nevertheless I did not formerly consider 
sufficiently the existence of structures which, as far as we can at 
present judge, are neither beneficial nor injurious; and this I 
believe to be one of the greatest oversights as yet detected in 
my work.” Now it is to be remarked that neither in these 
passages nor in any of the other less distinct expressions of 
opinion on this question, does Darwin ever admit that “specific 
characters ” — that is, the particular characters which serve to 
distinguish one species from another—are ever useless, much 
less that “a large proportion of them ” are so, as Mr. Romanes 
makes him “freely acknowledge.” On the other hand, in 
the passage which I have italicised he strongly expresses his 
view that much of what we suppose to be useless is due to 
our ignorance; and as I hold myself that, as regards many of 
the supposed useless characters, this is the true explanation, 
it may be well to give a brief sketch of the progress of know¬ 
ledge in transferring characters from the one category to 
the other. 
We have only to go back a single generation, and not even 
the most acute botanist could have suggested a reasonable use, 
for each species of plant, of the infinitely varied forms, sizes, 
