GERMINAL SELECTION. 63 



that have been recently brought forward by the acut- 

 est critics, as for example by Wigand, but particularly 

 by Wolff ,1 find, as I believe, their refutation in this doc- 

 trine of germinal selection. The principle extends 

 precisely as far as utility extends, inasmuch as it 

 creates, not only the direction of variation for every 

 increase or diminution demanded by the circumstances, 

 but also every qualitative direction of variation attain- 

 able by changes of quantity, so far as that is at all pos- 

 sible for the organism in question. 



Considering also the contrary process, the degenera- 

 tion of useless parts by the cessation of selection in re- 

 gard to the normal size of that part, a clear light is 

 shed on that whole complex system of ascending and 

 descending modifications which makes up most of the 

 transformations of a living form, and we are led to 

 understand how the fore extremity of a mammal can 

 change into a fin at the same time that the hinder ex- 

 tremity is growing rudimentary, or how one or two 

 toes of a hoofed animal can continue to develop more 

 and more powerfully, whilst the others in the same de- 

 gree grow weaker and weaker until finally they have 

 disappeared entirely from the germ of most of the 

 individuals of the species. 



Possibly some of that large body of inquirers, most- 

 ly paleontologists, who till now have considered the 

 Lamarckian principle indispensable for the explanation 

 of these phenomena — ^perhaps some, I say, will not 

 utterly close their eyes to the insight that germinal 

 selection performs the same services for the under- 

 standing of observed transformations, particularly of 



1 "Beitrage zur Kritik der Darwin'schen Lehre," Bio- 



