190 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



In the next place, is it either fair or reasonable to 

 expect that a varietal character of presumably very 

 recent origin should be as strongly inherited and 

 therefore as constant both in occurrence and sym- 

 metry as a true specific character, say, of a thousand 

 times its age? Even characters of so-called <; constant 

 varieties " in a state of nature are usually less constant 

 than specific characters ; while, again, as Darwin 

 says, " it is notorious that specific characters are 

 more variable than generic," the reason in both 

 cases being, as he proceeds to show, that the less 

 constant characters are characters of more recent 

 origin, and therefore less firmly fixed by heredity 1 . 

 Hence I do not understand how Mr. Wallace can 

 conclude, as he does, " that, admitting that this peculiar 

 appendage is wholly useless and meaningless, the fact 

 would be rather an argument against specific charac- 

 ters being also meaningless, because the latter never 

 have the characteristics [i.e. inconstancy of occur- 

 rence, form, and transmission] which this particular 

 variation possesses 2 ." Mr. Wallace can scarcely 

 suppose that when specific characters first arise, 

 they present the three-fold kind of constancy 

 to which he here alludes. But, if not, can it be 

 denied that these peculiar appendages appear to 

 be passing through a phase of development which 

 all " specific characters " must have passed through, 



utility to domesticated varieties which are bred for the slaughter- 

 house. If he now means to indicate that these appendages are possibly 

 due to natural selection, he is surely going very far to save his 

 a priori dogma ; and in the case next adduced will have to go further 

 still. 



1 Origin of Species, pp. 122-3. 



2 Darwinism^ p. 140. 



