The Theory of Natural Selection. 275 



second volume, where this whole "question of utility" 

 will be thoroughly dealt with. 



Once more, there is an important oversight very 

 generally committed by the followers of Darwin. For 

 even those who avoid the fallacies above mentioned 

 often fail to perceive, that natural selection can only 

 begin to operate if the degree of adaptation is already 

 given as sufficiently high to count for something in the 

 struggle for existence. Any adaptations which fall 

 below this level of importance cannot possibly have 

 been produced by survival of the fittest. Yet the 

 followers of Darwin habitually speak of adaptative 

 characters, which in their own opinion are subservient 

 merely to comfort or convenience, as having been 

 produced by such means. Clearly this is illogical ; 

 for it belongs to the essence of Darwin's theory to 

 suppose, that natural selection can have no jurisdiction 

 beyond the line where structures or instincts already 

 present a sufficient degree of adaptational value to 

 increase, in some measure, the expectation of life on 

 the part of their possessors. We cannot speak of 

 adaptations as due to natural selection, without 

 thereby affirming that they present what I have else- 

 where termed a " selection value." 



Lastly, as a mere matter of logical definition, it is 

 well-nigh self-evident that the theory of natural 

 selection is a theory of the origin, and cumulative 

 development, of adaptations, whether these be distinc- 

 tive of species, or of genera, orders, families, classes, 

 and sub-kingdoms. It is only when the adaptations 

 happen to be distinctive of the first (or lowest) of these 

 T 2 



