17« MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE [Cuar. VII. 



importance to the species. Thus, as I am inclined to believe, 

 morphological differences, which we consider as important — such a?i 

 the arrangement of the leaves, the divisions of the flower or of the 

 ovarium, the position of the ovules, &c. — first appeared in many 

 cases as fluctuating variations, which sooner or later became con- 

 stant through the nature of the organism and of the surrounding 

 conditions, as well as through the intercrossing of distinct indivi- 

 duals, but not through natural selection ; for as these morphological 

 characters do not affect the welfare of the species, any slight devia- 

 tions in them could not have been governed or accumulated through 

 this latter agency. It is a strange result which we thus arrive at, 

 namely that characters of slight vital importance to the species, 

 are the most important to the systematist ; but, as we shall here- 

 after see when we treat of the genetic principle of classification, 

 this is by no means so paradoxical as it may at first appear. 



Although we have no good evidence of the existence in organic 

 beings of an innate tendency towards progressive development, yet 

 this necessarily follows, as I have attempted to show in the fourth 

 chapter, through the continued action of natural selection. For the 

 best definition which has ever been given of a high standard of 

 organisation, is the degree to which the parts have been specialised 

 or differentiated ; and natural selection tends towards this end, inas- 

 much as the parts are thus enabled to perform their functions more 

 efficiently. 



A distinguished zoologist, Mr. St. George Mivart, has recently 

 collected all the objections which have ever been advanced by 

 myself and others against the theory of natural selection, as pro- 

 pounded by Mr. Wallace and myself, and has illustrated them with 

 admirable art and force. When thus marshalled, they make a 

 formidable array ; and as it forms no part of Mr. Mivart's plan to 

 give the various facts and considerations opposed to his conclusions, 

 uo slight effort of reason and memory is left to the reader, who may 

 wish to weigh the evidence on both sides. When discussing special 

 cases, Mr. Mivart passes over the effects of the increased use and 

 disuse of parts, which I have always maintained to be highly im- 

 portant, and have treated in my ' Variation under Domestication ' 

 at greater length than, as I believe, any other writer. He likewise 

 often assumes that I attribute nothing to variation, independently 

 of natural selection, whereas in the work just referred to I have 

 collected a greater number of well-established cases than can be 

 found in any other work known to me. My judgment may not be 

 trustworthy, but after reading with care Mr Mivart's book, and 



