Note 42 — Chapter III · Characters as Hereditary and Acquired (continued).

Nature, vol. xliii. pp. 410, 557; vol. xliv. pp. 7, 29. I say "adopted," because I had objected to his quoting the analogy of artificial selection, and stated, as above, that the only way to meet Mr. Spencer's "difficulty" was to deny the fact of co-adaptation as ever occurring in any case. It then appeared that Professor Meldola agreed with me as to this. But I do not yet understand why, if such were his view, he began by endorsing Mr. Wallace's analogy from artificial selection—i. e. confusing the case of co-adaptation with that of the blending of adaptations. If any one denies the fact of co-adaptation, he cannot assist his denial by arguing the totally different fact that adaptations may be blended by free intercrossing; for this latter fact has never been questioned, and has nothing to do with the one which he engaged in disputing.