xxxni] LITERARY WORK, ETC., 1 887-1905 215 



My proposal was to adopt the plan of Wyld's great globe 

 in Leicester Square, many years ago, giving all the detailed 

 features on the inside surface, while the outside could be 

 boldly modelled in some indestructible material to show all 

 the chief physical features, which might also be coloured in 

 fresco as naturally as possible, and would then be a grand 

 object seen either near or at a distance, while a captive balloon 

 would afford a splendid view of the polar regions and of all 

 parts of the northern hemisphere. The numerous advantages 

 of this plan are explained in some detail, and I have little 

 doubt that it will be realized (perhaps on half the scale) some 

 time during the present century. The article is contained in 

 the second volume of my " Studies." 



I also wrote an article on " The Gorge of the Aar and its 

 Teachings," as serving to enforce my papers on the " Ice Age 

 and its Work " three years before. But my most important 

 scientific essay this year was a paper I read to the Linnean 

 Society on "The Problem of Utility." My purpose 'was to 

 enforce the view that all specific and generic characters must 

 be (or once have been) useful to their possessor, or, owing 

 to the complex laws of growth, be correlated with useful cha- 

 racters. It was necessary to discuss this point, because Mr. 

 Romanes had unreservedly denied it, and Professor Mivart, 

 the Rev. Mr. Henslow, Mr. Bateson, and others, had taken 

 the same view. I endeavoured to show that the problem is a 

 fundamental one, that utility is the basic principle of natural 

 selection, and that without natural selection it has not been 

 shown how specific characters can arise. By specific is, of 

 course, meant characters which, either separately or in com- 

 bination, distinguish a species from all others, and which are 

 found in all, or in the great bulk, of the individuals composing 

 the species ; and I have shown that it is for want of clear 

 thinking and accurate reasoning on the entire process of 

 species formation that the idea of useless specific characters 

 has arisen (see " Studies," vol. i.). 



I also reviewed Copes' ■ Primary Factors of Evolution " 

 and Dr. G. Archdall Reid's "Present Evolution of Man" 

 in Nature (April 16), and wrote a long letter in Nature 



