corners found in a single such articulation, let alone in all the articulations of the body, should hold in its hands the power of life and death over individuals for untold successions of generations, the fact is again unmistakably impressed upon our attention that the conception of the selective processes which has hitherto obtained is insufficient, that the root of the process in fact lies deeper, that it is to be found in the place where it is determined what variations of the parts of the organism shall appear--namely _in the germ_. The phenomena observed in the _stunting_, or _degeneration_, _of parts rendered useless_, point to the same conclusion. They show distinctly that ordinary selection which operates by the removal of entire persons, _personal selection_, as I prefer to call it, cannot be the only cause of degeneration; for in most cases of degeneration it cannot be assumed that slight individual {31} vacillations in the size of the organ in question have possessed selective value. On the contrary, we see such retrogressions affected apparently _in the shape of a continuous evolutionary process determined by internal causes_, in the case of which there can be no question whatever of selection of persons or of a survival of the fittest, that is, of individuals with the smallest rudiments. It is this consideration principally that has won so many adherents for the Lamarckian principle in recent times, particularly among the paleontologists. They see the outer toes of hoofed animals constantly and steadily degenerating through long successions of generations and species, concurrently with the re-enforcement of one or two middle toes, which are preferred or are afterwards used exclusively for stepping, and they believe correctly enough that these results should not be ascribed to the effects of personal selection alone. They demand a principle which shall effect the degeneration by internal forces, and believe that they have found it in functional adaptation.[11] {32} On this last point, now, I believe, they are mistaken, be they ever so strongly convinced of the correctness of their view and ever so aggressive and embittered in their defence of it.