INADEQUACY OF NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 689 



'* These results were obtained before the recent discussion of the question 

 commenced, and joined with the other evidence entirely dispose of those 

 arguments which Prof. Woismann bases on facts furnished by the social 



insects."] 



The other piece of additional evidence I have referred to, is 

 furnished by two papers contributed to The Journal of Anatomy 

 and Physloloffy for October 1893 and April 1894, by K. Havelock 

 Charles, M. D., etc. Arc, Professor of Anatomy in the Medical 

 College, Lahore. These papers set forth the differences between 

 the leg-bones of Pluropeans and those of the Punjaub people — 

 differences caused by their respective habits of sitting in chairs 

 and squatting on the ground. He enumerates more than twenty 

 such differences, chiefly in the structures of the knee-joint and 

 ankle-joint. From the resume of his second paper I quote the 

 following passages, which sufficiently show the data and the in- 

 ferences : — 



" 7. The habits as to sitting postures of Europeans differ from those of 

 their prehistoric ancestors, the Cave-dwellers, &c., who probably squatted on 

 the ground. 



" 8. The sitting postures of Orientals are the same now as ever. They 

 have retiined the habits of their ancestors. The Europeans have not 

 done so. 



" 9. Want of use would induce changes in form and size, and so, gradually, 

 small differences would be integrated till there would be total disappearance 

 of the markings on the European skeleton, as no advantage would accrue to 

 him from the [)Ossession of facets on his bones fitting them for postures not 

 practised by him. 



" 10. The fac3ts seen on the bones of the Panjabi infant or foetus have 

 been transmitted to it by the accumulation of peculiarities gained by habit in 

 the evolution of its racial type — in which an acquisition having become a per- 

 manent possession, ' profitable to the individual under its conditions of life,' is 

 transmitted as a useful inheritance. 



" 11. These markings are due to the influence of certain positions, which 

 are brought about by the use of groups of muscles, and they are the definite 

 results produced by actions of these muscles. 



" 12. The effects of the use of the muscles mentioned in No. 11 are trans- 

 mitted to the off:*pring, for the markings are present in the foe'u.s-in-u'ero^ in 

 the child at birth, and in the infant. 



"13. The markings arc instances of the transmission of acquired charac- 

 ters, which heritage in the individual, function subsequently develops." 



No other conclusion appears to me possible. Panmixia, even 

 were it not invalidated by its unwarranted assumption as above 

 shown, would be out of court : the case is not a case of either 

 increase or decrease of size but of numerous changes of form. 

 Simultaneous variation of co-operative parts cannot be alleged, 

 since these co-operative parts have not changed in one way but 

 in various ways and degrees. And even were it permissible to 

 suppose that the required different variations had taken place 

 simultaneously, natural selection cannot be supposed to have 

 operated. The assumption would imply that in the struggle for 



