﻿Characters as Adaptive and Specific. 233 



A group of individuals which, however many 

 characters they share with other individuals, agree 

 in presenting one or more characters of a peculiar, 

 hereditary, and adaptive kind, with some certain degree 

 of distinctness. 



Of course this definition rests upon the dogma of 

 utility as a necessary attribute of characters qua 

 specific — i. e. the dogma against which the whole 

 of the present discussion is directed. Therefore 

 all I need say with reference to it is, that at 

 any rate it cannot be adduced in any argument 

 where the validity of its basal dogma is in question. 

 For it would be a mere begging of this question to 

 argue that every species must present at least one 

 peculiar and adaptive character, because, according 

 to definition, unless an organic type does present at 

 least one such character, it is not a specific type. 

 Moreover, and quite apart from this, it is to be hoped 

 that naturalists as a body will never consent to base 

 their diagnostic work on what at best must always 

 be a highly speculative extension of the Darwinian 

 theory. While, lastly, if they were to do so with 

 any sort of consistency, the precise adaptation which 

 each peculiar character subserves, and which because 

 of this adaptation is constituted a character of specific 

 distinction, would have to be determined by actual 

 observation. For no criterion of specific distinction 

 could be more vague and mischievous than this one, 

 if it were to be applied on grounds of mere inference 

 that such and such a character, because seemingly 

 constant, must " necessarily" be either useful, vestigial, 

 or correlated. 



Such then, as far as I can see, are all the 



