GERMINAL SELECTION 153 



the useful determinants would have no chance to pre- 

 dominate. As we are incompetent, however, to appre- 

 ciate absolute usefulness, we are as well justified in 

 admitting it as in denying it ; we may therefore admit 

 it, since it enables us to imagine the beginnings of 

 adaptation. Weismann thus returns to his favourite 

 idea of adaptation to the end, which, owing to the sur- 

 vival of the best-adapted individuals, has ruled nature 

 since the world began. 



The struggle between determinants explains also, 

 Weismann says, the complex adaptations o f different 

 parts which co-operate to the jsame end (nerves an 

 "muscles, eye and optic centers, protective colouration 

 and corresponding instincts), adaptations which the 

 Lamarckians considered as evidence against natural 

 "selection. Natural selection~cannoF account for them, 

 but germinal selection explains (?) why~th"e~~b t et ef — - 



minants on the upward grade c orrespond to a ll the 

 parts which, in favoured individuals, contribute to as- 

 sure the perfect activity of an organ. 



The same applies to the degeneracy of useless or - 

 gans ; panmixia accounts for the beginning of that 

 processus, as individuals in which useless organs are 

 more developed survive as well as the others; but the 

 later stages of the processus can only be explained 

 through the influence of another factor, germinal se- 

 lection. When a useless organ is less developed from 

 birth in anindividual, the determinants of its germ 



