The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

1218 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

upon any future state. I would not defend this ranking for an application to
evolutionary theory, if only because Nietzsche's formative "will to power" identifies a
persisting force that must influence any subsequent adaptation as well, whereas the
original context of an evolved phenotypic feature need not exert such a continuing
hold upon later history. But I do appreciate Nietzsche's point, which can be translated
into evolutionary terms as the source of constraint. The original reason does continue
to exert a hold upon history through the structural constraints that channel later
usages. Once feathers originate for thermoregulation, the form of any later utility for
flight will be influenced by features built for the original context.
Nietzsche therefore criticizes those "genealogists" who mistake a current utility
for a source of origin—for this erroneous argument "forces 'adaptation' into the
foreground, which is a second-rate activity, just a reactivity ... This is to
misunderstand the essence of life, its will to power. We overlook the prime
importance which the spontaneous, aggressive, expansive, reinterpreting, redirecting
and formative powers have, which 'adaptation' only follows when they have had their
effect."
Finally, Nietzsche reasserts the biological analog of the hand to reinforce his
rankings and to reemphasize the importance of understanding historical origin, and of
establishing criteria for separating origins from later utilities (in the face of
difficulties outlined at the end of the quotation) in any truly historical study:

The procedure itself will be something older, predating its use as punishment,

that the latter was only inserted and interpreted into the procedure (which had

existed for a long time though it was thought of in a different way), in short,

that the matter is not to be understood in the way our naive moral and legal

genealogists assumed up till now, who all thought the procedure had been

invented for the purpose of punishment, just as people used to think that the

hand had been invented for the purpose of grasping. With regard to the other

element in punishment, the fluid one, its "meaning," the concept "punishment"

presents, at a very late stage of culture (for example, in Europe today), not just

one meaning but a whole synthesis of "meanings": the history of punishment

up to now in general, the history of its use for a variety of purposes, finally

crystallizes in a kind of unity which is difficult to dissolve back into its

elements.

EXAPTATION AND THE PRINCIPLE OF QUIRKY FUNCTIONAL

SHIFT: THE RESTRICTED DARWINIAN VERSION AS THE GROUND

OF CONTINGENCY

How Darwin resolved Mivart’s challenge of incipient stages
Darwin treated this issue of discordance between historical origin and current utility
in his catchall Chapter 6 entitled Difficulties on Theory. Although this chapter
amalgamates a potpourri of objections, and we may therefore conclude that Darwin
regarded none of them as sufficiently central for separation