Again he speaks of "the enormous number," and further on of "the innumerable multitude" of specific peculiarities which are useless; and he finally declares that the question needs no further arguing, "because in the later editions of his works Mr.Darwin freely acknowledges that a large proportion of specific distinctions must be conceded to be useless to the species presenting them." I have looked in vain in Mr.Darwin's works to find any such acknowledgment, and I think Mr.Romanes has not sufficiently distinguished between "useless characters" and "useless specific distinctions." On referring to all the passages indicated by him I find that, in regard to specific characters, Mr.Darwin is very cautious in admitting inutility.

His most pronounced "admissions" on this question are the following: "But when, from the nature of the organism and of the conditions, modifications have been induced which are 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 Naegeli 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.