The Making of Species 



that certain devices and mechanisms are useful 

 to their possessors ; but from our knowledge of 

 natural history we are led to think that their 

 usefulness is consequent on the degree of per- 

 fection in which they exist, and that if they 

 were at all imperfect, they would not be useful. 

 Now it is clear that in any continuous process 

 of evolution such stages of imperfection must 

 occur, and the objection has been raised that 

 natural selection cannot protect such imperfect 

 mechanisms so as to lift them into perfection. 

 Of the objections which have been brought 

 against the theory of natural selection this is by 

 far the most serious." 



Bateson further pointed out that chemical 

 compounds are not continuous, that they do not 

 merge gradually each into the next, and suggested 

 that we might expect a similar phenomenon in 

 the organic world. 



Elsewhere he says : " Let the believer in the 

 efficacy of selection operating on continuous 

 fluctuations try to breed a white or a black rat 

 from a pure strain of black-and-white rats, by 

 choosing for breeding the whitest or the blackest; 

 or to raise a dwarf sweet pea from a tall race 

 by choosing the shortest. It will not work. 

 Variation leads and selection follows." 



But Bateson's views fell upon stony ground, 

 because zoologists are mostly men of theory and 

 not practical breeders. They laboured under the 



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