426 THE METHOD OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 



II. 



Ill the first part of this article the misconceptiou which underlies the 

 main body of Mr. Batesou's work has been discussed in some detail. 

 We will now deal with some of the minor objections to the views of 

 most Darwinians, which are to be found in his lengthy introduction; 

 after which the validity of Mr. Francis Galton's doctrine, as to x^osi- 

 tions of organic stability (also held by Mr. Bateson), will be considered. 

 And first, we note that he uses the usual misleading terms ''minute," 

 "minimal," "imperceptible," and "insensible" (p. 15) as applied to the 

 individual variations on which Darwin relied, although he has himself 

 given figures of beetles and earwigs showing tliat such variations are 

 enormous — greater, indeed, tlian in the illustrative cases I have given 

 in my Darwinism.^ 



A strong attack is made on the theory of the utility of specific 

 characters. It is admitted that an enormous amount of evidence has 

 been collected, and that "the functions of many problematical organs 

 have been conjectured, in some cases perhaps rightly;" yet he adds, 

 "whole groups of common phenomena are still almost untouched even 

 by conjecture." He tells us that "many suggestions have been made 

 as to the benefits which edible moths may derive from their protective 

 coloration, and as to the reasons why unpalatable butterflies in gen- 

 eral are brightly colored" (p. 11) ; but neither here nor elsewhere is any 

 hint given that more than "suggestions" have been advanced. Consid- 

 ering that this is the one branch of the subject in which natural selec- 

 tion has been shown to be an actual working reality in natnre by the 

 experiments of Jenner Weir, lUitler, Stainton, and Belt, the observa- 

 tions of Bates and Fritz Miiller, and especially by the elaborate investi- 

 gations of Professor Poulton, it was hardly fair to pass the subject by 

 as if nothing had been done but pure conjecture. He also ignores the 

 continuous advance that is being made in determining the utilities of 

 the innumerable modifications in the forms and arrangement of the 

 leaves and other of the nonfloral appendages of plants by Kerner 

 Lubbock, and many other observers; as well as the light thrown on 

 color and marking as siieciiic characters in the higher animals by the 

 consideration of the value of distinctiveness for purposes of rec^ogni- 

 tion, a character of life-preserving value in the case of many animals, 

 and in all of great importance to reproduction, and an essential factor 

 in the differentiation of species. ■ It is, therefore, not correct to say, "But 

 as to the particular benefit which one dull moth enjoys as the result 

 of his own particular pattern of dullness as comi^ared with the closely 

 similar pattern of the next species, no suggestion is made." The sug- 

 gestion has been made (Darwinism, ]). 22()), and has been accepted as 

 at all events a good working hyx^othesis by many naturalists. On this 

 question of the utility of characters which are constant characteristics 



'See Proceediuga of the Zoological Society, 1892 (pp. 59-23) [592-3?], in a paper by 

 W. Batesou aud H. H. Biiudley. 



