﻿318 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



question had never been raised. As already stated, it is 

 only since the appearance of my own paper on Physiological 

 Selection that anybody ever thought of drawing a distinction 

 between species and genera, such that while all specific char- 

 acters must be held necessarily useful, no such necessity extends 

 to generic characters. In the second place, that Darwin must 

 have had specific characters (as well as generic) in his mind 

 when writing the above passage, is rendered unquestionable 

 by the fact that many of the instances of inutility adduced by 

 Nageli and Broca have reference to specific characters. 

 Lastly, as shown in the passages previously quoted from the 

 sixth edition of the Origin of Species, Darwin attributed the 

 origin of useless generic characters to useless specific 

 characters ; so that Mr. Wallace really gains nothing by his 

 remark that specific characters are not specially mentioned 

 in the present passage. 

 Once more : — 



"Darwin's latest expression of opinion on this question is 

 interesting, since it shows he was inclined to return to his 

 earlier view of the general, or universal, utility of specific 

 characters •." 



This " latest expression of opinion/' as I shall immediately 

 prove, shows nothing of the kind — being, in fact, a mere 

 re-statement of the opinion everywhere and at all times 

 expressed by Darwin, touching the caution that must be 

 observed in deciding, with respect to individual cases, whether 

 an apparently useless specific character is to be regarded as 

 really useless. Moreover, at no time and in no place did 

 Darwin entertain any "view of the general, or universal, 

 utility of specific characters." But the point now is, that if 

 (as was the case) Darwin "inclined" to depart more and 

 more from his earlier view of the highly general utility of 

 specific characters ; and if (as was not the case) he ended by 

 showing an inclination " to return " to this earlier view ; what 

 1 Darwinism, p. 142. 



