132 DARWINISM 



unimportant for the welfare of the species, they may be, and 

 apparently often have been, transmitted in nearly the same 

 state to numerous, otherwise modified, descendants" (Origin, p. 

 175). The words I have here italicised clearly show that 

 such characters are usually not " specific," in the sense that 

 they are such as distinguish species from each other, but are 

 found in numerous allied species. Again : " Thus a large 

 yet undefined extension may safely be given to the direct and 

 indirect results of natural selection ; but I now admit, after 

 reading the essay of Nageli on plants, and the remarks by 

 various authors with respect to animals, more especially those 

 recently made by Professor Broca, that in the earlier editions 

 of my Origin of Species I perhaps attributed too much to the 

 action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest. I 

 have altered the fifth edition of the Origin so as to confine my 

 remarks to adaptive changes of structure, but I am convinced, 

 from the light gained during even the last few years, that very 

 many structures which now appear to us useless, will hereafter be 

 proved to be useful, and will therefore come within the range of 

 natural selection. Nevertheless I did not formerly consider 

 sufficiently the existence of structures which, as far as we can at 

 present judge, are neither beneficial nor injurious ; and this I 

 believe to be one of the greatest oversights as yet detected in 

 my work." Now it is to be remarked that neither in these 

 passages nor in any of the other less distinct expressions of 

 opinion -on this question, does Darwin ever admit that "specific 

 characters " — that is, the particular characters which serve to 

 distinguish one species from another — are ever useless, much 

 less that "a large proportion of them " are so, as Mr. Eomanes 

 makes him "freely acknowledge." On the other hand, in 

 the passage which I have italicised he strongly expresses his 

 view that much of what we suppose to be useless is due to 

 our ignorance ; and as I hold myself that, as regards many of 

 the supposed useless characters, this is the true explanation, 

 it may be well to give a brief sketch of the progress of know- 

 ledge in transferring characters from the one category to 

 the other. 



We have only to go back a single generation, and not even 

 the most acute botanist could have suggested a reasonable use, 

 for each species of plant, of the infinitely varied forms, sizes, 



