SOME SPECIFIC CHARACTERS 125 



A more ample discussion of the origin of species is not 

 within the scope of this book. But I may say that until 

 recently the conception that every organ, part and feature 

 of a plant and animal must be explained, and can only be 

 explained, as being of life-saving value to its possessor, and 

 accordingly " selected " and preserved in the struggle for 

 existence, was held by many " Darwinians " in too uncom- 

 promising a spirit. This conception was, really from the 

 first, qualified by the admission that the life-saving value 

 and consequent preservation of a structure must un- 

 doubtedly in some cases have been in operation in 

 ancestors of the existing species, and is no longer opera- 

 tive in their descendants although they inherit the 

 structure which has now become useless. Moreover, the 

 operation of those subtle laws of nutrition and of form 

 which are spoken of as the " correlation of parts in growth 

 and in variation " (mentioned on p. 119) was pointed out 

 by Darwin himself as probably accounting for many re- 

 markable growths, structures and colour-marks which we 

 cannot imagine to be now, or ever to have been in past 

 ancestry, of a life-saving value. Nevertheless, the old 

 " teleology," according to which, in pre-Darwinian days, 

 it was held that every part and feature of an animal or 

 plant has been specially created to fulfil a definite pre- 

 ordained function or useful purpose, still influenced the 

 minds of many naturalists. Natural selection and sur- 

 vival of the fittest were reconciled with the old teleological 

 scheme, and it was held that we must as good Darwinians 

 account for every structure and distinctive feature in 

 every animal and plant as due to its life-saving value. 

 Herbert Spencer's term, " the survival of the fittest" con- 

 duced to the diffusion of this extreme view: Darwin's 

 equivalent term, " the preservation of favoured races," did 

 not raise the question of greater or less fitness. 



The extreme view is now, however, giving place to the 



