Note 99 — Chapter VII · Characters as Adaptive and Specific.

Mr. Wallace deems the concluding words "rather confident." I was not, however, before aware that he extended his a priori views on utility to domesticated varieties which are bred for the slaughter-house. If he now means to indicate that these appendages are possibly due to natural selection, he is surely going very far to save his a priori dogma; and in the case next adduced will have to go further still.