NA TURAL SELECTION NOT RUINOUS. 23 



increases we find neglect and decay of the less- 

 needed faculties as with domesticated animals 

 and civilized men, who lose in one direction while 

 they gain in another. The increasing difficulty 

 of complex evolution by natural selection is no 

 proof whatever of use-inheritance l except to those 

 who confound difficulty with impossibility. 



ALLEGED RUINOUS EFFECTS OF NATURAL 

 SELECTION. 



Mr. Spencer further contends that natural selec- 

 tion, by unduly developing specially advantageous 

 modifications without the necessary but complex 

 secondary modifications, would render the constitu- 



1 I venture to coin this concise term to signify the direct inherit- 

 ance of the effects of use and disuse in kind. Having a name for a 

 thing is highly convenient ; it facilitates clearness and accuracy in 

 reasoning, and in this particular inquiry it may save some confusion 

 of thought from double or incomplete meanings in the shortened 

 phrases which would otherwise have to be employed to indicate this 

 great but nameless factor of evolution. 



