DEGENERATIVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Degenerative

... nutriment because of their diminished strength, and they will assimilate more feebly and grow more slowly, unless chance streams of nutriment help them to recover themselves. But, as will presently be shown, a change of direction cannot take place at EVERY stage of the degenerative process. If a certain critical stage of downward progress be passed, even favourable conditions of food-supply will no longer suffice permanently to change the direction of the variation. Only two cases are conceivable; if the determinant corresponds to a USEFUL organ, ...

— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others