art from Selection, and also much that may
very well have been preserved and so in a sense constituted by
Selection. Here the matter is likely to rest. There is a passage in
the sixth edition of the _Origin_ which has I think been overlooked.
On page 70 Darwin says, "The tuft of hair on the breast of the wild
turkey-cock cannot be of any use, and it is doubtful whether it can be
ornamental in the eyes of the female bird." This tuft of hair is a
most definite and unusual structure, and I am afraid that the remark
that it "cannot be of any use" may have been made inadvertently; but
it may have been intended, for in the first edition the usual
qualification was given and must therefore have been deliberately
excised. Anyhow I should like to think that Darwin did throw over that
tuft of hair, and that he felt relief when he had done so. Whether
however we have his great authority for such a course or not, I feel
quite sure that we shall be rightly interpreting the facts of nature
if we cease to expect to find purposefulness wherever we meet with
definite structures or patterns. Such things are, as often as not, I
suspect rather of the nature of tool-marks, mere incidents of
manufacture, benefiting their possessor not more than the wire-marks
in a sheet of paper, or the ribbing on the bottom of an oriental plate
renders those objects more attractive in our eyes.

If Variation may be in any way definite, the question once more
arises, may it not be definite in direction? The belief that it is has
had many supporters, from Lamarck onwards, who held that it was guided
by need, and others who, like Naegeli, while laying no emphasis on
need, yet were convinced that there was guidance of some kind. The
latter view under the name of "Orthogenesis," devised I believe by
Eimer, at the present day commends itself to some naturalists. The
objection to such a suggestion is of course that no fragment of real
evidence can be produced in its support. On the other hand, with the
experimental proof that variation consists largely in the unpacking
and repacking of an original complexity, it is not so certain as we
might like to think that the order of these events is not
predetermined.

For instance the original "pack" may have been made in such a way that
at the _n_th division of the germ-cells of a Sweet Pea a colour-factor
might be dropped, and that at the _n_+_n_th division the hooded
variety be given off, and so on. I see no ground wha