THE METHOD OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 427 



of the species, but whose utility is uot apparent to the casual observer, 

 Mr, Bateson uses very strong- hiuguage. Eeferring- to the case of two 

 ladybirds, the small Coccinella decempunctata being exceedingly vari- 

 able, both in color and spotting, the larger C. septempunctata, very 

 constant, he says, "To be asked to believe that the color of C. septem- 

 punctata is constant because it matters to the species, and that the 

 color of C. decempunctata is variable because it does not matter, is to be 

 asked to abrogate reason" (p. 572). I fear that I myself must be in this 

 sad case, for though I have uot been asked to believe this unreasonable 

 thing, yet I do believe it. Of course I may be wroug and ]\[r. Bateson 

 right, but how is it that he is so absolutely sure that he is right? 



Before proceeding further we may briefly notice that Mr. Bateson 

 seems to imply that the "meristic," or numerical variations, to which 

 he has devoted his volume, are altogether ignored by Darwinians in 

 their adoption of "individual variations" as opposed to "sports" for 

 the main materials on which natural selection works. But this is alto- 

 gether erroneous. ]So doubt they would reject nine-tenths of Mr. Bate- 

 son's cases as being simply monstrosities, which neither have nor could 

 ever have had any part in the production of new species; but they 

 always recognize that genera, and even species are sometimes character- 

 ized by a ditference in the number or arraugement of serial parts — as 

 of vertebra', ribs, teeth, or markings, and that therefore variations of 

 this kind are sometimes, though comparatively very rarely, the material 

 on which natural selection works. As development seems almost always 

 to have proceeded by reduction from large and indefinite numbers of 

 serial parts to the minimum number compatible with the maximum of 

 utility, an increase in number occurring now may be, as is usually con- 

 sidered, a form of reversion, though Mr. Bateson denies that there is 

 any such thing in nature. This diminution in number may have occurred 

 either by a gradual diminution in size and ultimate disappearance, as 

 when limbs of the higher animals have been lost, in whales, the apteryx, 

 snakes, etc.; or it may sometimes have been abrupt, which means that 

 the rudiment of the part ceased to develop at an early embryonic stage. 

 Either mode is quite in harmony with the views of Darwinians, and not 

 very much seems to be gained by terming the former "continuous" and 

 the latter "discontinuous," especially when this last term is held to 

 include almost every kind of monstrosity. 



We have now to consider an eiiually important, though as I consider 

 an equally unsubstantial, novelty — the view that there are "definite 

 positions of organic stability," which alone are sufficient to mold races 

 " without any help whatever" from natural selection. This view appears 

 to have originated with Mr. Francis Galton, and was first stated in his 

 work on Natural Inheritance, and again in his Eoyal Society paper on 

 " Thumb and finger marks." The same view is adopted by Mr. Bateson ; 

 and in an article on "Discontinuity in evolution" in Mind (Vol. Ill, 

 pp. 302, 372) Mr. Galton approves of Mr. Bateson's work, and restates 

 bis latest views on the subject, and these I now propose to consider. 



