\ 
Poulton .] 382 [May 16. 
Being unable to prove utility does not invalidate natural selec- 
tion. If inutility could be proved for any large class of characters, 
the theory would certainly be destroyed as a wide-reaching and 
significant process. I do not think, however, that any such 
evidence has been forthcoming. I shall be interested in the dis- 
cussion which follows this paper to hear whether those who 
believe in the Lamarckian theory have any such evidence to 
produce, whether they can prove that any one great class of 
characters has been useless in the past and remains useless in the 
present. 
Another class of objection has been urged long ago, and is still 
urged to-day. Why do we not find in the paleontological series 
the records of failures? Now, as regards the individuals of a 
species we cannot expect to find any such evidence. What is 
failure? Failure means, according to natural selection, the 
failure to produce offspring. The individual which comes into 
the world and dies young has failed. The individual which is 
represented in the generations of the future has succeeded. 
Natural selection has set its stamp upon that individual. But it 
is impossible to say whether or not this is true of any particular 
fossil. We have not got the facts before us by which we can 
form any conclusions. 
Furthermore, we know the struggle for existence is exces- 
sively complicated. The skeleton alone, though of the highest 
value in association with the rest of the organism, has been the 
turning point in the struggle in a comparatively small number of 
cases. When it has been the turning point in association with 
other parts, these latter are absent. We have only a very small 
part of the problem before us, and never can expect any more. 
But while we cannot expect to find evidence of the survival of 
the fittest among the individuals of a species, we may expect to 
find it in the supplanting of classes by classes, of groups of 
species by groups of species. Some of the facts which have been 
brought forward as evidence in this direction do, to my mind, 
very strongly support the theory of natural selection by paleonto- 
logical evidence. Consider especially the case of the large 
mammals preceding those which gave rise to the quadrupeds now 
upon the earth. So far as we can judge of these huge forms by 
‘their skeletons, they appear to have possessed a bodily structure 
\s well fitted to survive as that of many now living in the world ; 
