[149] _Darwinism_, p. 131. He says:--"I have looked in vain in Mr. Darwin's works for any such acknowledgement" (i.e. "that a large proportion of specific distinctions must be conceded useless to the species presenting them"). We must remember, however, that it was not until the appearance of my paper on _Physiological Selection_, four years after Darwin's death, that the question now in debate was raised. Consequently, he never had occasion to deal expressly with this particular question--viz. whether "the doctrine of utility" has any _peculiar_ reference to _specific_ characters--as he surely would have done had he entertained the important distinction between specific and all other characters which Mr. Wallace now alleges that he did entertain. But, be this as it may, we cannot expect to find in Darwin's writings any express allusion to a question which had not been raised until 1886. The most we can expect to find are scattered sentences which prove that the distinction in question was never so much as present to his mind,--i. e. never occurred to him as even a possible distinction. I will first take the passages which Mr. Wallace himself supplies from among those which I had previously indicated. "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[150]." [150] _Origin of Species_, p. 175. Italics mine.