J. T. Gulich — Inconsistencies of Utilitarianism. 5 



no more relation to the well-being of the plants themselves 

 than do the colors of gems and minerals. "We may also 

 include in the same category those algse and fungi which have 

 bright colors — the red snow of the Arctic regions, the red, 

 green, or purple seaweeds, the brilliant scarlet, yellow, white, 

 or black agarics, and other fungi. All these colors are proba- 

 bly the direct results of chemical composition or molecular 

 structure, and being thus normal products of the vegetable 

 organism, need no special explanation from our present point 

 of view ; and the same remark will apply to the varied tints 

 of the bark of trunks, branches and twigs, which are often of 

 various shades of brown and green, or even vivid reds or 

 yellows" (p. 302). He here seems to admit that instead of 

 useless specific characters being unknown, they are so common 

 and so easily explained by " the chemical constitution of the 

 organism" that they claim no special attention. 



Inconsistency in extending the meaning of Environment. 



If Mr. Wallace accepts the definition of natural selection 

 which makes it the survival of those members of a species 

 which are best fitted to its environment (and this is the scope 

 he seems to assign to it in the earlier half of Chapter V where 

 the matter is under special discussion), then he ought to admit 

 that changes in a species produced by the action of the mem- 

 bers of the species on each other although they are adaptive 

 are not due to natural selection. If, on the other hand, nat- 

 ural selection is made to include the actions and reactions of 

 the species on itself (and this he does on pages 282-5), then 

 certainly he ought to admit that there may be changes in the 

 action of natural selection without any change in the relations 

 of the species to the environment. One way to escape this 

 dilemma is to extend the definition of the environment so as 

 to include every influence that affects the species, whether it is 

 within the species, or external to it ; but this reduces his doc- 

 trine, that without change in the environment there is no 

 change in the organism, to the fruitless truism that without 

 some cause there is no change in the organism. An example 

 of Mr. Wallace's extending the meaning of the environment 

 so as to include the action of the members of a species on each 

 other, is found on page 149. After mentioning several argu- 

 ments intended to show the impossibility that isolated portions 

 of a species should diverge while exposed to the same environ- 

 ment, he remarks, " It is impossible that the environment of 

 the isolated portion can be exactly like that of the bulk of the 

 species. It cannot be so physically, since no two separated 

 areas can be exactly alike in climate and soil ; and, even if 



