Page - 229 - in The Origin of Species

THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION 229 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, inasmuch 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 propounded 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, no 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 important, 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 greaternumber 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 comparing each section with what I have said on the same head, I never before felt so strongly convinced of the general truth of the conclusions here arrived at, subject, of course, in so intricate a subject, to much partial error. All Mr. Mivart's objections will be, or have been, con- sidered in the present volume. The one new point which appears to have struck many readers is, "that natural selec- tion is incompetent to account for the incipient stages of useful structures." This subject is intimately connected with that of the gradation of characters, often accompanied by a change of function,—for instance, the conversion ^ of a swim-bladder into lungs,—points which were discussed in the last chapter under two headings. Nevertheless, I will here