﻿190 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



In the next place, is it either fair or reasonable to 

 expect that a varietal character of presumably very 

 recent origin should be as strongly inherited — and 

 therefore as constant both in occurrence and sym- 

 metry — as a true specific character, say, of a thousand 

 times its age? Even characters of so-called " constant 

 varieties " in a state of nature are usually less constant 

 than specific characters; while, again, as Darwin 

 says, " it is notorious that specific characters are 

 more variable than generic," — the reason in both 

 cases being, as he proceeds to show, that the less 

 constant characters are characters of more recent 

 origin, and therefore less firmly fixed by heredity 1 . 

 Hence I do not understand how Mr. Wallace can 

 conclude, as he does, " that, admitting that this peculiar 

 appendage is wholly useless and meaningless, the fact 

 would be rather an argument against specific charac- 

 ters being also meaningless, because the latter never 

 have the characteristics [i.e. inconstancy of occur- 

 rence, form, and transmission] which this particular 

 variation possesses 2 ." Mr. Wallace can scarcely 

 suppose that when specific characters first arise, 

 they present the three-fold kind of constancy 

 to which he here alludes. But, if not, can it be 

 denied that these peculiar appendages appear to 

 be passing through a phase of development which 

 all " specific characters " must have passed through, 



utility to domesticated varieties which are bred for the slaughter- 

 house. If he now means to indicate that these appendages are possibly 

 due to natural selection, he is surely going very far to save his 

 a priori dogma ; and in the case next adduced will have to go further 

 still. 



1 Origin of Species, pp. 122-3. 



2 Darwinism, p. 140. 



