DESCENT OF MAN...excerpt

"I now admit...that in the earlier editions of my 'Origin of Species' I perhaps attributed too much to the action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest. I have altered the fifth edition of the 'Origin' so as to confine my remarks to adaptive changes of structure....Nevertheless, I did not formerly consider sufficiently the existence of structures, which, as far as we can at present judge, are neither beneficial nor injurious and this I believe to be one of the greatest oversights as yet detected in my work. I may be permitted to say, as some excuse, that I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to shew that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change, though largely aided by the inherited effects of habit, and slightly by the direct action of the surrounding conditions... Some of those who admit the principle of evolution, but reject natural selection, seem to forget, when criticizing my book, that I had the two above objects in view; hence if I have erred in giving natural selection great power, which I am very far from admitting, or in having exaggerated its power, which is in itself probable, I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma if separate creations." Pp.81-82, THE DESCENT OF MAN, "Manner of Development," by Charles Darwin (Penguin Classics: 1879, 2004) The Descent of Man (Penguin Classics) www.amazon.com