Criticisms of Theory of Natural Selection. 351 
are then useless, though afterwards, when more fully 
developed, they become uscful. For it belongs to 
the very essence of the theory of natural selection, 
that a structure must be supposed already useful 
before it can come under the influence of natural 
selection: therefore the theory seems incapable of 
explaining the origin and conservation of ducipicnt 
organs, or organs which are not yet sufficiently 
developed to be of any service to the organisms 
presenting them. 
This objection is one that has been advanced by 
all the critics of Darwinism ; but has been piesented 
with most ability and force by the Duke of Argyll. I 
will therefore state it in his words. 
If the doctrine of evolution be true—that is to say, if all 
organic creatures have been developed by ordinary generation 
from parents—then it follows of necessity that the primeval 
germs must have contained potentially the whole succeeding 
series. Moreover, if that series has been developed gradually 
and very slowly, it foliows, also as a matter of necessity, that 
every modification of structure must have been functionless at 
first, when it began to appear.... Things cannot be selected 
until they have first been produced. Nor can any structure 
be selected by utility in the struggle for existence until it has 
not only been produced, but has been so far perfected as to 
actually be used. 
The Duke proceeds to argue that all adaptive 
structures must therefore originally have been due 
to special design: in the earlier stages of their develop- 
ment they must all have been what he calls “ pro- 
phetic germs.” Not yet themselves of any use, 
and therefore not yet capable of being improved by 
natural selection, both in their origin and in the first 
stages (at all events) of their development, they must 
