﻿Characters as Adaptive and Specific. 275 



appeal to facts. For this question is not one of fact : 

 it is a question of reasoning. The treatment of our 

 subject matter is logical : not biological. 



3. The doctrine is both universal and absolute. 

 According to one form of it all species, and according 

 to another form of it all specific characters, must 

 necessarily be due to the principle of utility. 



4. The doctrine in both its forms is deduced from 

 a definition of the theory of natural selection as 

 a theory, and the sole theory, of the origin of species ; 

 but, as Professor Huxley has already shown, it does 

 not really follow, even from this definition, that all 

 specific characters must be " necessarily useful." 

 Hence the two forms of the doctrine, although coin- 

 cident with regard to species, are at variance with 

 one another in respect of specific characters. Thus 

 far, of course, I agree with Professor Huxley ; but 

 if I have been successful in showing that the above 

 definition of the theory of natural selection is logically 

 fallacious, it follows that the doctrine in both its 

 forms is radically erroneous. The theory of natural 

 selection is not, accurately speaking, a theory of the 

 origin of species: it is a theory of the origin and 

 cumulative development of adaptations, to whatever 

 order of taxonomic division these may happen to 

 belong. Thus the premisses of the deduction which 

 we are considering collapse : the principle of utility 

 is shown not to have any other or further reference 

 to species, or to specific characters, than it has to 

 fixed varieties, genera, families, &c, or to the char- 

 acters severally distinctive of each 



5. But, quitting all such antecedent considera- 

 tions, we next proceeded to examine the doctrine 



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