The Problem of Adaptation 25 
seed-feeding birds or mammals. Shall we try to account for 
its color on the grounds of the poisonous character of the 
seed? Has it been acquired as a warning to those animals 
that have eaten it once, and been made sick or have died in 
consequence? I confess to a personal repugnance to imag- 
inative explanations of this sort, that have no facts of experi- 
ence to support them. 
CHANGES IN THE ORGANISM THAT ARE OF No USE To THE 
INDIVIDUAL OR TO THE RACE 
As an example of a change in the organism that is of no 
use to it may be cited the case of the turning white of the 
hair in old age in man and in several other mammals. The 
absorption of bone at the angle of the chin in man, is another 
case of a change of no immediate use to the individual. We 
also find in many other changes that accompany old age, 
processes going on that are of no use to the organism, and 
which may, in the end, be the cause of its death. Such 
changes, for instance, as the loss of the vigor of the muscles, 
and of the nervous system, the weakening of the heart, and 
partial failure of many of the organs to carry out their 
functions. These changes lead sooner or later to the death 
of the animal, in consequence of the. breaking down of some 
one essential organ, or to disease getting an easier foot- 
hold in the body. We have already discussed the possible 
relation of death as an adaptation, but the changes just men- 
tioned take place independently of their relation to the death 
of the organism as a whole, and show that some of the nor- 
mal organic processes are not for the good of the individual 
or of the race. In fact, the perversions of some of the most 
deeply seated instincts of the species, as in infanticide, while 
the outcome of definite processes in the organism, are of 
obvious disadvantage to the individual, and the perversion of 
so deeply seated a process as the maternal instinct, leading 
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