﻿Characters as Adaptive and Specific. 169 



Huxley, we may now pass on to consider it in 

 the much more comprehensive form advocated by 

 Mr. Wallace. Of course it is obvious that if the 

 doctrine is erroneous in its Huxleyan form, much 

 more must it be so in its Wallacean ; and, therefore, 

 that having shown its erroneousness in its less extended 

 application, there is little need to consider it further in 

 its more extended form. Looking, however, to its 

 importance in this more extended application, I think 

 we ought to examine it independently as thus pre- 

 sented by Mr. Wallace and his school. Let us therefore 

 consider, on its own merits, the following statement : — 

 It follows directly from the theory of natural 

 selection that not only all species, but likewise all 

 specific characters, must be due to natural selection, 

 and, therefore, must all be of use to the species 

 which present them, or else correlated with other 

 characters which are so. 



It seems worth while to observe, in limine^ that 

 this doctrine is contradicted by that of Professor 

 Huxley. For supposing natural selection to be the 

 only principle concerned in the origin of all species, 

 it by no means follows that it is the sole agency 

 concerned in the origin of all specific characters. 

 It is enough for the former proposition if only 

 some of the characters distinctive of any given 

 species — nay, as he very properly expresses it, if 

 only one such character — has been due to natural 

 selection ; for it is clear that, as he adds, " any number 

 of indifferent [specific] characters " may thus have 

 been furnished with an opportunity, so to speak, of 

 being produced by causes other than natural selection. 

 Hence, as previously remarked, the Huxleyan doctrine, 



