Characters as Adaptive and Specific. 287 



species and specific characters, the futility of which it 

 has been the object of these chapters to expose. 



In conclusion, it only remains to reiterate that in 

 thus combating what appears to me plainly errone- 

 ous deductions from the theory of natural selection, 

 I am in no wise combating that theory itself. On 

 the contrary, I hope that I am rendering it no unim- 

 portant service by endeavouring ■ to relieve it of 

 a parasitic growth — an accretion of false logic. 

 Regarding as I do the theory of natural selection as, 

 primarily, a theory of the origin (or cumulative 

 development) of adaptations, I see in merely non- 

 adaptive characters — be they "specific" or other — 

 a comparatively insignificant class of phenomena, 

 which may be due to a great variety of incidental 

 causes, without any further reference to the master- 

 principle of natural selection than that in the presence 

 of this principle none of these non-adaptive characters 

 can be actively deleterious But that there may be 

 "any number of indifferent characters" it is no part 

 of the theory of natural selection to deny; and all 

 attempts to foist upon it a priori " deductions " opposed 

 alike to the facts of nature and to the logic of 

 the case, can only act to the detriment of the great 

 generalization which was expressly guarded from such 

 fallacies by the ever-careful judgement of Darwin. 



