Evidence in favour of Use-i7therita7ice 227 



functions reacquired in whole or part by the young of 

 each succeeding generation. 



The Lamarckians urge (2) that paleontologists find 

 bony structures whose initial and early stages are thought 

 to have had no utility ; and appeal is made generally to 

 the so-called non-useful stages of useful organs. This is 

 conceded by many to be the gravest objection now current 

 to the universal applicability of natural selection.^ It is 

 met — when urged as giving presumptive evidence of the 

 transmission of acquired characters — by saying : {a) that 

 it proves too much ; for the bones are of all the structures 

 least subject to modification by external influences, and if 

 such inheritance appears in them, it should appear more 

 strongly in other structures where we do not find evidence 

 of it ; {b) that even if such an objection should be found 

 to hold against natural selection, still some unknown 

 auxiliary factor may be operative; {c) that actual utility 

 can be pointed out in most cases, and may be fairly 

 assumed in others ; {d) organic or indirect selection again 

 has application here, as supplementary to natural selec- 

 tion ; {e) the principle of ' change of function * {Functions- 

 weeks el ; see A. Dohrn, Der Urspriing der Wirbeltiere 

 2ind das Princip des Functionswechsels, 1875) is cited, 

 according to which, in such * non-useful ' stages, the organ 

 in question served another useful function and was selected 

 for this utility. 



Other arguments are mainly negative, consisting largely 

 of objections of a general, sort to the sufficiency of natural 

 selection — such as that geological time is not sufficient 

 for so slow a process as evolution by natural selection, 

 that small variations could not produce such large aggre- 

 1 Cf. Chap. V. § 3, and Chap. X. §§ i, 2. 



