Inconsistencies of Utilitarianism. 129 



that presses for solution, namely the explanation of perma- 

 nent divergence in characters that are useless without being 

 hurtful (p. 142), unless he considers his suggestion " that it 

 may be due to individual variability " an adequate explana- 

 tion ; and I presume he does not. On ])age 142 he says of 

 characters that are " useless without being hurtful." " No 

 cause or influence has been adduced adequate to render such 

 characters fixed and constant ; " but in speaking of " the 

 delicate tints of spring foliage and the intense liues of 

 autumn" he says, "As colours they are uiuxdaptive and 

 appear to have no more relation to the well-being of the 

 plants themselves than do the colours of gems and minerals. 

 We may also include in the same category those algaB and 

 fungi which have bright colours — the red snow of the Arctic 

 regions, the red, green, or purple seaweeds, the brilliant 

 scarlet, yellow, white, or black Agarics, and other fungi. All 

 these colours are probably the direct results of chemical com- 

 position or molecular structure, and being thus normal products 

 of the vegetable organism need no special explanation from 

 our present point of view ; and the same remark will apply 

 to the varied tints of the bark of trunks, branches, and twigs, 

 which are often of various shades of brown and green, or even 

 vivid reds or yellows" (p. 302). He here seems to admit 

 that instead of useless specific characters being unknown they 

 are so common and so easily explained by " the chemical 

 constitution of the organism '•" that they claim no special 

 attention. 



Inconsistency in extending the meaning of Environment. 



If Mr. Wallace accepts the definition of natural selection 

 which makes it the survival of those members of a species 

 which are best fitted to its environment (and this is the scope 

 he seems to assign to it in the earlier half of Chapter V., where 

 the matter is under special discussion), then he ought to admit 

 that changes in a species produced by the action of the mem- 

 bers of the species on each other although they are adaptive 

 are not due to natural selection. If, on the other hand, natu- 

 ral selection is made to include the actions and reactions of 

 the species on itself (and this he does on pages 282-285), then 

 certainly he ought to admit that there may be changes in the 

 action of natural selection without any change in the relations 

 of the species to the environment. One way to escape this 

 dilemma is to extend the definition of the environment, so as 

 to include every influence that affects the species, whether it 

 is within the species or external to it ; but this reduces his 



