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Luck, or Cunning,

As the Main Means of Organic
Modification ?

Aii attempt to throw additional light upon
Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection

Samuel Butler

Author of

“ Life and Habit,” “Evolution, Old and New,” “Erewhon,”
“ Essays on Life, Art and Science,” etc.

New and Cheaper Issue

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ALFRED TYLOR, Esq., E.G.S., &c.

WHOSE EXPERIMENTS AT CARS H ALTON IN
THE YEARS 1 883 AND 1 884,

ESTABLISHED THAT PLANTS ALSO ARE ENDOWED WITH
INTELLIGENTIAL AND VOLITIONAL FACULTIES,

THIS BOOK,

BEGUN AT HIS INSTIGATION,

IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

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PREFACE.

- H -

This book, as I have said in my concluding chapter,
has turned out very different from the one I had it in
my mind to write when I began it. It arose out of a
conversation with the late Mr. Alfred Tylor soon after
his paper on the growth of trees and protoplasmic con¬
tinuity was read before the Linnean Society — that is
to say, in December I 884 — and I proposed to make the
theory concerning the subdivision of organic life into
animal and vegetable, which I have broached in my
concluding chapter, the main feature of the book.
One afternoon, on leaving Mr. Tylor’s bedside, much
touched at the deep disappointment he evidently felt
at being unable to complete the work he had begun so
ably, it occurred to me that it might be some pleasure
to him if I promised to dedicate my own book to him,
and thus, however unworthy it might be, connect it
with his name. It occurred to me, of course, also,
that the honour to my own book would be greater
than any it could confer, but the time was not one
for balancing considerations nicely, and when I made
my suggestion to Mr. Tylor on the last occasion that

Vlll

PREFACE.

I ever saw him, the manner in which he received it
settled the question. If he had lived I should no
doubt have kept more closely to my original plan, and
should probably have been furnished by him with much
that would have enriched the book ^and made it more
worthy of his acceptance ; but this was not to be.

In the course of writing I became more and more
convinced that no progress could be made towards a
sounder view of the theory of descent until people
came to understand what the late Mr. Charles Darwin’s
theory of natural selection amounted to, and how it
was that it ever came to be propounded. Until the
mindless theory of Charles-Darwinian natural selection
was finally discredited, and a mindful theory of evolu¬
tion was substituted in its place, neither Mr. Tylor’s
experiments nor my own theories could stand much
chance of being attended to. I therefore devoted my¬
self mainly, as I had done in “ Evolution, Old and
New,” and in u Unconscious Memory,” to considering
whether the view taken bv the late Mr. Darwin, or
the one put forward by his three most illustrious pre¬
decessors, should most command our assent.

The deflection from my original purpose was in¬
creased by the appearance, about a year ago, of Mr.
Grant Allen’s “ Charles Darwin,” which I imagine to
have had a very large circulation. So important,
indeed, did I think it not to leave Mr. Allen’s state¬
ments unchallenged, that in November last I recast
my book completely, cutting out much that I had
written, and practically starting anew. How far Mr.

PREFACE.

Tylor would have liked it, or even sanctioned its being
dedicated to him, if he were now living, I cannot, of
course, say. I never heard him speak of the late Mr.
Darwin in any but terms of warm respect, and am by
no means sure that he would have been well pleased
at an attempt to connect him with a book so polemical
as the present. On the other hand, a promise made
and received as mine was, cannot be set aside lightly.
The understanding was, that my next book was to be
dedicated to Mr. Tylor ; I have written the best I
could, and indeed never took so much pains with any
other ; to Mr. Tylor’s memory, therefore, I have most
respectfully, and regretfully, inscribed it.

Desiring that the responsibility for what has been
done should rest with me, I have avoided saying any¬
thing about the book while it was in progress to any
of Mr. Tylor’s family or representatives. They know
nothing, therefore, of its contents, and if they did,
would probably feel with myself very uncertain how
far it is right to use Mr. Tylor’s name in connection
with it. I can only trust that, on the whole, they may
think I have done most rightly in adhering to the
letter of my promise.

October 15, 1886.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION . . I

II. MR. HERBERT SPENCER . 20

III. MR. HERBERT SPENCER ( continued ) . . . . 35

IV. MR. ROMANES’ “ MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS ” 48

V. STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE . . 7 1

VI. STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE ( continued ) 83

VII. MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S “ THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC

EVOLUTION” . 107

VIII. PROPERTY, COMMON SENSE, AND PROTOPLASM . 12 1

IX. PROPERTY, COMMON SENSE, AND PROTOPLASM ( Con¬
tinued ) . . . . . . . . .138

X. THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND. . . . 151

XL THE WAY OF ESCAPE . 1 66

XII. WHY DARWIN’S VARIATIONS WERE ACCIDENTAL . 1 77

XIII. DARWIN’S CLAIM TO “DESCENT WITH MODIFICA¬

TION ” . 192

XIV. DARWIN AND DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION {con¬

tinued) ......... 204

XV. THE EXCISED “ MY'S ” . 235

XVI. MR. GRANT ALLEN’S “CHARLES DARWIN” . . 246

XVII. PROFESSOR RAY LANKESTER AND LAMARCK . . 264

XVIII. PER CONTRA . 28 1

XIX. CONCLUSION . 297

ERRATUM.

P. 245, line 6, for “ information,” read “ impression.

ADDITIONAL ERL AT A.

P. 130, line 18, for “fish,” read “seal.”

,, 223, ,, 12 from bottom,, dele “he.”

,, 275, ,, 2, after “transmitted” add quotes.

8, for “profess,” read “possess.”

> i 5 ’

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

I shall perhaps best promote the acceptance of the
two main points on which I have been insisting for
some years past, I mean, the substantial identity
between heredity and memory, and the reintroduction
of design into organic development, by treating them
as if they had something of that physical life with
which they are so closely connected. Ideas are like
plants and animals in this respect also, as in so many
others, that they are more fully understood when their
relations to other ideas of their time, and the history
of their development are known and borne in mind.
By development I do not merely mean their growth
in the minds of those who first advanced them, but
that larger development which consists in their sub¬
sequent good or evil fortunes — in their reception,
favourable or otherwise, by those to whom they were
presented. This is to an idea what its surroundings
are to an organism, and throws much the same light

LUCK , 02? CUNNING?

upon it that knowledge of the conditions under which
an organism lives throws upon the organism itself.
I shall, therefore, begin this new work with a few
remarks about its predecessors.

I am awmre that what I may say on this head is
likely to prove more interesting to future students of
the literature of descent than to my immediate public,
but any hook that desires to see out a literary three¬
score years and ten must offer something to future
generations as well as to its own. It is a condition
of its survival that it shall do this, and herein lies
one of an author’s chief difficulties. If books only
lived as long as men and women, we should know
better how to grow them; as matters stand, howTever,
the author lives for one or two generations, whom he
comes in the end to understand fairly well, while the
book, if reasonable pains have been taken with it,
should live more or less usefully for a dozen. About
the greater number of these generations the author is
in the dark ; but come what may, some of them are
sure to have arrived at conclusions diametrically
opposed to our own upon every subject connected
with art, science, philosophy, and religion ; it is plain,
therefore, that if posterity is to be pleased, it can only
be at the cost of repelling some present readers. Un¬
willing as I am to do this, I still hold it the lesser of
two evils ; I will be as brief, however, as the interests
of the opinions I am supporting will allow.

In “ Life and Habit ” I contended that heredity was
a mode of memory. I endeavoured to show that all
hereditary traits, whether of mind or body, are inherited

INTRODUCTION.

in virtue of, and as a manifestation of, the same power
whereby we are able to remember intelligently what
we did half an hour, yesterday, or a twelvemonth
since, and this in no figurative but in a perfectly
real sense. If life be compared to an equation of
a hundred unknown quantities, I followed Professor
Hering of Prague in reducing it to one of ninety-nine
only, by showing two of the supposed unknown quan¬
tities to be so closely allied that they should count
as one. I maintained that instinct was inherited
memory, and this without admitting more exceptions
and qualifying clauses than arise, as it were, by way
of harmonics from every proposition, and must be
neglected if thought and language are to be possible.

I showed that if the view for which I was contend¬
ing was taken, many facts which, though familiar, were
still without explanation or connection with our other
ideas, would remain no longer isolated, but be seen at
once as joined with the mainland of our most assured
convictions. Among the things thus brought more
comfortably home to us was the principle underlying
longevity. It became apparent why some living
beings should live longer than others, and how any
race must be treated whose longevity it is desired to
increase. Hitherto we had known that an elephant
was a long-lived animal and a fly short-lived, but we
could give no reason why the one should live longer
than the other; that is to say, it did not follow in
immediate coherence with, or as intimately associated
with, any familiar principle that an animal which is
late in the full development of its reproductive system

{U A

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

will tend to live longer than one which reproduces
early. If the theory of “ Life and Habit ” be admitted*
the fact of a slow-growing animal being in general
longer lived than a quick developer is seen to he con¬
nected with, and to follow as a matter of course from,
the fact of our being able to remember anything at
all, and all the well-known traits of memory, as
observed where we can best take note of them, are
perceived to be reproduced with singular fidelity in
the development of an animal from its embryonic
stages to maturity.

Take this view, and the very general sterility of
hybrids from being a crux of the theory of descent
becomes a stronghold of defence. It appears as part
of the same story as the benefit derived from judicious,
and the mischief from injudicious, crossing; and this,
in its turn, is seen as part of the same story, as the
good we get from change of air and scene when we
are overworked. I will not amplify ; but reversion to
long-lost, or feral, characteristics, the phenomena of
old age, the fact of the reproductive system being
generally the last to arrive at maturity — few further
developments occurring in any organism after this has
been attained — the sterility of many animals in con¬
finement, the development in both males and females
under certain circumstances of the characteristics of
the opposite sex, the latency of memory, the uncon¬
sciousness with which we grow, and indeed perform
all familiar actions, these points, though hitherto,
most of them, so apparently inexplicable that no one
even attempted to explain them, became at once

INTRODUCTION.

intelligible, if the contentions of “ Life and Habit ”
were admitted.

Before I had finished writing this book I fell in
with Professor Mivart’s “ Genesis of Species,” and for
the first time understood the distinction between the
Lamarckian and Charles-Darwinian systems of evolu¬
tion. This had not, so far as I then knew, been as
yet made clear to us by any of our more prominent
writers upon the subject of descent with modification ;
the distinction was unknown to the general public,
and indeed is only now beginning to be widely under¬
stood. While reading Mr. Mivart’s book, however, I
became aware that I was being faced by two facts,
each incontrovertible, but each, if its leading exponents
were to be trusted, incompatible with the other.

On the one hand there was descent; we could not
read Mr. Darwin’s books and doubt that all, both
animals and plants, were descended from a common
source. On the other, there was design ; we could
not read Paley and refuse to admit that design, intelli¬
gence, adaptation of means to ends, must have had a
large share in the development of the life we saw
around us ; it seemed indisputable that the minds and
bodies of all living beings must have come to be what
they are through a wise ordering and administering of
their estates. We could not, therefore, dispense either
■with descent or with design, and yet it seemed impos¬
sible to keep both, for those who offered us descent stuck
to it that we could have no design, and those, again,
who spoke so wisely and so well about design would
not for a moment hear of descent wdth modification.

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

Each, moreover, had a strong case. Who could
reflect upon rudimentary organs, and grant Paley the
kind of design that would alone content him ? And
yet who could examine the foot or the eye, and grant
Mr. Darwin his denial of forethought and plan ?

Eor that Mr. Darwin did deny skill and contrivance
in connection with the greatly preponderating part of
organic developments cannot he and is not now dis¬
puted. In the first chapter of “ Evolution Old and
New” I brought forward passages to show how com¬
pletely he and his followers deny design, but will here
quote one of the latest of the many that have appeared
to the same effect since “ Evolution Old and New ”
was published; it is by Mr. Eomanes, and runs as
follows : —

“ It is the very essence of the Darwinian hypothesis
that it only seeks to explain the apparently purposive
variations, or variations of an adaptive kind.” #

The words “ apparently purposive ” show that those
organs in animals and plants wThich at first sight seem
to have been designed with a view to the work they
have to do — that is to say, with a view to future
function — had not, according to Mr. Darwin, in realitv
any connection with, or inception in, effort; effort in¬
volves purpose and design; they had therefore no
inception in design, however much they might present
the appearance of being designed ; the appearance was
delusive ; Mr. Eomanes correctly declares it to be
“ the very essence ” of Mr. Darwin’s system to attempt
an explanation of these seemingly purposive variations

* Nature, Nov. 12, 1885.

INTRODUCTION.

which shall be compatible with their having arisen
without being in any way connected with intelligence
or design.

As it is indisputable that Mr. Darwin denied design,
so neither can it be doubted that Paley denied descent
with modification. What, then, were the wrong entries
in these two sets of accounts, on the detection and
removal of which they would be found to balance as
they ought ?

Paley’s weakest place, as already implied, is in the
matter of rudimentary organs ; the almost universal
presence in the higher organisms of useless, and some¬
times even troublesome, organs is fatal to the kind of
design he is trying to uphold ; granted that there is
design, still it cannot be so final and far-foreseeing as
he wishes to make it out. Mr. Darwin’s weak place,
on the other hand, lies, firstly, in the supposition that
because rudimentary organs imply no purpose now,
they could never in time past have done so — that
because they had clearly not been designed with an
eye to all circumstances and all time, they never,
therefore, could have been designed with an eye to
any time or any circumstances ; and, secondly, in
maintaining that “ accidental,” “ fortuitous,” “ spon¬
taneous ” variations could be accumulated at all except
under conditions that have never been fulfilled yet,
and never will be ; in other words, his weak place lay
in the contention (for it comes to this) that there can
be sustained accumulation of bodily wealth, more than
of wealth of any other kind, unless sustained experience,
watchfulness, and good sense preside over the accumu-

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

lation. In “Life and Habit,” following Mr. Mivart, and,
as I now find, Mr. Herbert Spencer, I showed (pp. 279—
281) how impossible it was for variations to accumulate
unless they were for the most part underlain by a
sustained general principle ; but this subject will be
touched upon more fully later on.

The accumulation of accidental variations which
owed nothing to mind either in their inception, or
their accumulation, the pitchforking, in fact, of mind
out of the universe, or at any rate its exclusion from
all share worth talking about in the process of organic
development, this was the pill Mr. Darwin had given
us to swallow ; but so thickly had he gilded it with
descent with modification, that we did as we were told,
swallowed it without a murmur, were lavish in our
expressions of gratitude, and, for some twenty years
or so, through the mouths of our leading biologists,
ordered design peremptorily out of court, if she so
much as dared to show herself. Indeed, we have even
given life pensions to some of the most notable of these
biologists, I suppose in order to reward them for having
hoodwinked us so much to our satisfaction.

Happily the old saying, “ Naturam expellas furcd ,
tamcn usque recurret ,” still holds true, and the reaction
that has been gaining force for some time will doubt¬
less ere long brush aside the cobwebs with which those
who have a vested interest in Mr. Darwin’s reputation
as a philosopher still try to fog our outlook. Professor
Mivart was, as I have said, among the first to awaken
us to Mr. Darwin’s denial of design, and to the
absurdity involved therein. He well showed how

INTRODUCTION .

incredible Mr. Darwin’s system was found to be, as
soon as it was fully realised, but there he rather left
us. He seemed to say that we must have our descent
and our design too, but he did not show how we were
to manage this with rudimentary organs still staring
us in the face. His work rather led up to the clearer
statement of the difficulty than either put it before us
in so many words, or tried to remove it. Nevertheless
there can be no doubt that the “ Genesis of Species ”
gave Natural Selection what will prove sooner or later
to be its death-blow, in spite of the persistence with
which many still declare that it has received no hurt,
and the sixth edition of the “ Origin of Species,”
published in the following year, bore abundant traces
of the fray. Moreover, though Mr. Mivart gave us no
overt aid, he pointed to the source from which help
might come, by expressly saying that his most im¬
portant objection to Neo-Darwinism had no force
against Lamarck.

To Lamarck, therefore, I naturally turned, and soon
saw that the theory on which I had been insisting
in “ Life and Habit ” was in reality an easy corollary
on his system, though one which he does not appear
to have caught sight of. I also saw that his denial of
design was only, so to speak, skin deep, and that his
system was in reality teleological, inasmuch as, to use
Isidore Geoffroy’s words, it makes the organism design
itself. In making variations depend on changed actions,
and these, again, on changed views of life, efforts, and
designs, in consequence of changed conditions of life,
he in effect makes effort, intention, will, all of which

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

involve design (or at any rate which taken together
involve it), underlie progress in organic development.
True, he did not know he was a teleologist, but he was
none the less a teleologist for this. He was an un-
conscious teleologist, and as such perhaps more abso¬
lutely an upholder of teleology than Paley himself ; but
this is neither here nor there ; our concern is not with
what people think about themselves, but with what
their reasoning makes it evident that they really hold.

How strange the irony that hides us from ourselves !
When Isidore Geoffroy said that according to Lamarck
organisms designed themselves,^ and endorsed this, as
to a great extent he did, he still does not appear to
have seen that either he or Lamarck were in reality
reintroducing design into organism ; he does not appear
to have seen this more than Lamarck himself had seen
it, but, on the contrary, like Lamarck, remained under
the impression that he was opposing teleology or
purposiveness.

Of course in one sense he did oppose it ; so do we
all, if the word design be taken to intend a very far
foreseeing of minute details, a riding out to meet
trouble long before it comes, a provision on academic
principles for contingencies that are little likely to
arise. We can see no evidence of any such design as
this in nature, and much everywhere that makes against
it. There is no such improvidence as over providence,
and whatever theories we may form about the origin
and development of the universe, we may be sure that
it is not the work of one who is unable to understand

* Hist. Nat. Gen., tom. ii. p. 41 1, 1859.

INTRODUCTION.

liow anything can possibly go right unless he sees to
it himself. Nature works departmentally and by way
of leaving details to subordinates. But though those
who see nature thus do indeed deny design of the pre-
scient-from-all-eternity order, they in no way impugn
a method which is far more in accord with all that we
commonly think of as design. A design which is as
incredible as that a ewe should give birth to a lion
becomes of a piece with all that we observe most
frequently if it be regarded rather as an aggregation
of many small steps than as a single large one. This
principle is very simple, but it seems difficult to under¬
stand. It has taken several generations before people
would admit it as regards organism even after it was
pointed out to them, and those who saw it as regards
organism still failed to understand it as regards design ;
an inexorable “ Thus far shalt thou go and no farther ”
barred them from fruition of the harvest they should
have been the first to reap. The very men who most
insisted that specific difference was the accumulation of
differences so minute as to be often hardly, if at all,
perceptible, could not see that the striking and baffling
phenomena of design in connection with organism
admitted of exactlv the same solution as the riddle

of organic development, and should be seen not as
a result reached per saltum, but as an accumulation
of small steps or leaps in a given direction. It was
as though those who had insisted on the derivation of
all forms of the steam-engine from the common kettle,
and who saw that this stands in much the same rela¬
tions to the engines, we will say, of the Great Eastern

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

steamship as the amoeba to man, were to declare that
the Great Eastern engines were not designed at all,
on the ground that no one in the early kettle days
had foreseen so great a future development, and were
unable to understand that a piecemeal solvitur anibu-
lando design is more omnipresent, all-seeing, and all¬
searching, and hence more truly in the strictest sense
design, than any speculative leap of fancy, however
bold and even at times successful.

From Lamarck I went on to Buffon and Erasmus
Darwin — better men both of them than Lamarck,
and treated by him much as he has himself been
treated by those who have come after him — and
found that the system of these three writers, if con¬
sidered rightly, and if the corollary that heredity
is only a mode of memory were added, would get
us out of our dilemma as regards descent and design,
and enable us to keep both. We could do this by
making the design manifested in organism more like
the only design of which we know anything, and there¬
fore the only design of which we ought to speak — I
mean our own.

Our own design is tentative, and neither very far-fore¬
seeing nor very retrospective ; it is a little of both, but
much of neither ; it is like a comet with a little light
in front of the nucleus and a good deal more behind it,
which ere long, however, fades away into the darkness ;
it is of a kind that, though a little wise before the
event, is apt to be much wiser after it, and to profit
even by mischance so long as the disaster is not an
overwhelming one ; nevertheless, though it is so inter-

INTRODUCTION.

woven with luck, there is no doubt about its being
design ; why, then, should the design which must
have attended organic development be other than this ?
If the thing that has been is the thing that also shall
be, must not the thing which is be that which also
has been ? Was there anything in the phenomena
of organic life to militate against such a view of
design as this ? Not only was there nothing, but
this view made things plain, as the connecting of
heredity and memory had already done, which till
now had been without explanation. Eudimentary
organs were no longer a hindrance to our acceptance
of design, they became weighty arguments in its
favour.

I therefore wrote “ Evolution Old and New,” with
the object partly of backing up “ Life and Habit,” and
showing the easy rider it admitted, partly to show
how superior the old view of descent had been to
Mr. Darwin’s, and partly to reintroduce design into
organism. I wrote “ Life and Habit ” to show that
our mental and bodily acquisitions were mainly stores
of memory : I wrote “ Evolution Old and New ” to add
that the memory must be a mindful and designing
memory.

I followed up these two books with “ Unconscious
Memory,” the main object of which was to show how
Professor Hering of Prague had treated the connection
between memory and heredity ; to show, again, how
substantial was the difference between Yon Hartmann
and myself in spite of some little superficial resem¬
blance ; to put forward a suggestion as regards the

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

physics of memory, and to meet the most plausible
objection which I have yet seen brought against “ Life
and Habit.”

Since writing these three books I have published
nothing on the connection between heredity and
memory, except the few pages of remarks on Mr.
Romanes’ “ Mental Evolution in Animals ” in my book,*
from which I will draw whatever seems to be more
properly placed here. I have collected many facts that
make my case stronger, but am precluded from publish¬
ing them by the reflection that it is strong enough
already. I have said enough in “ Life and Habit ” to
satisfy any who wish to be satisfied, and those who wish
to be dissatisfied would probably fail to see the force of
what I said, no matter how long and seriously I
held forth to them ; I believe, therefore, that I shall
do well to keep my facts for my own private reading
and for that of my executors.

I once saw a copy of “ Life and Habit ” on Mr.
Bogue’s counter, and was told by the very obliging
shopman that a customer had just written something
in it which I might like to see. I said of course I
should, like to see, and immediately taking the book
read the following — which it occurs to me that I am
not justified in publishing. What was written ran
thus : —

“ As a reminder of our pleasant hours on the broad

Atlantic, will Mr. - please accept this book (which

I think contains more truth, and less evidence of it,

than any other I have met with) from his friend - ? *

* Selections, &c. Trubner & Co., 1SS4.

INTRODUCTION.

I presume the gentleman had met with the Bible —
a work which lays itself open to a somewhat similar
comment. I was gratified, however, at what I had
read, and take this opportunity of thanking the writer,
an American, for having liked my book. It was so
plain he had been relieved at ndt finding the case
smothered to death in the weight of its own evidences,
that. I resolved not to forget the lesson his words had
taught me.

The only writer in connection with “ Life and
Habit ” to whom I am anxious to reply is Mr.
Herbert Spencer, but before doing this I will con¬
clude the present chapter with a consideration of
some general complaints that have been so often
brought against me that it may be worth while to
notice them.

These general criticisms have resolved themselves
mainly into two.

Firstly, it is said that I ought not to write about
biology on the ground of my past career, which my
critics declare to have been purely literary. I wish
I might indulge a reasonable hope of one day becoming
a literary man ; the expression is not a good one, but
there is no other in such common use, and this must
excuse it; if a man can be properly called literary,
he must have acquired the habit of reading accurately,
thinking attentively, and expressing himself clearly.
He must have endeavoured in all sorts of ways to
enlarge the range of his sympathies so as to be able
to put himself easily en rapport with those whom he
is studying, and those whom he is addressing. If he

LUCK , Oi? CUNNING?

cannot speak with tongues himself, he is the inter¬
preter of those who can — without whom they might
as well be silent. I wish I could see more signs of
literary culture among my scientific opponents ; I
should find their books much more easy and agreeable
reading if I could ; and then they tell me to satirise
the follies and abuses of the age, just as if it was not
this that I was doing in writing about themselves.

What, I wonder, would they say if I were to
declare that they ought not to write books at all,
on the ground that their past career has been too
purely scientific to entitle them to a hearing ? They
would reply with justice that I should not bring vague
general condemnations, but should quote examples of
their bad writing. I imagine that I have done this
more than once as regards a good many of them, and
I dare say I may do it again in the course of this
book ; but though I must own to thinking that the
greater number of our scientific men write abominably,
I should not bring this against them if I believed
them to be doing their best to help us ; many such
men we happily have, and doubtless always shall
have, but they are not those who push most to the
fore, and it is these last who are most angry with me
for writing on the subjects I have chosen. They
constantly tell me that I am not a man of science ;
no one knows this better than I do, and I am quite
used to being told it, but I am not used to being con¬
fronted with the mistakes that I have made in matters
of fact, and trust that this experience is one which I
may continue to spare no pains in trying to avoid.

INTRODUCTION.

Nevertheless I again freely grant that I am not
a man of science. I have never said I was. I was
educated for the Church. I was once inside the
Linnean Society’s rooms, but have no present wish to
go there again ; though not a man of science, however,
I have never affected indifference to the facts and
arguments which men of science have made it their
business to lay before us ; on the contrary, I have
given the greater part of my time to their considera¬
tion for several years past. I should not, however,
say this unless led to do so by regard to the interests
of theories which I believe, to be as nearly important
as any theories can be which do not directly involve
money or bodily convenience.

The second complaint against me is to the effect
that I have made no original experiments, but have
taken all my facts at second hand. This is true, but
I do not see what it has to do with the question. If
the facts are sound, how can it matter whether A or
B collected them ? If Professor Huxley, for example,
has made a series of valuable original observations
(not that I know of his having done so), why am I
to make them over again ? What are fact- collectors
worth if the fact co-ordinators may not rely upon
them ? It seems to me that no one need do more
than go to the best sources for his facts, and tell his
reader where he got them. If I had had occasion
for more facts I daresay I should have taken the
necessary steps to get hold of them, but there was no
difficulty on this score ; every text-book supplied me
with all, and more than all, I wanted; my complaint

1 8 LUCK , OR CUNNING?

was that the facts which Mr. Darwin supplied would
not bear the construction he tried to put upon them ;
I tried, therefore, to make them bear another which
seemed at once more sound and more commodious ;
rightly or wrongly I set up as a builder, not as a
burner of bricks, and the complaint so often brought
against me of not having made experiments is about
as reasonable as complaint against an architect on the
score of his not having quarried with his own hands
a single one of the stones which he has used in build¬
ing. Let my opponents show that the facts which
they and I use in common .are unsound, or that I have
misapplied them, and I will gladly learn my mistake,
but this has hardly, to my knowledge, been attempted.
To me it seems that the chief difference between
myself and some of my opponents lies in this, that I
take my facts from them with acknowledgment, and
they take their theories from me — without.

One word more and I have done. I should like
to say that I do not return to the connection between
memory and heredity under the impression that I
shall do myself much good by doing so. My own
share in the matter was very small. The theory that
heredity is only a mode of memory is not mine, but
Professor Hering’s. He wrote in 1870, and I not
till 1877. I should be only too glad if he would
take his theory and follow it up himself ; assuredly
he could do so much better than I can; but with the
exception of his one not lengthy address published
some fifteen or sixteen years ago he has said nothin^
upon the subject, so far at least as I have been able

INTRODUCTION.

to ascertain ; I tried hard to draw him in 1880, but
could get nothing out of him. If, again, any of our
more influential writers, not a few of whom evidently
think on this matter much as I do, would eschew
ambiguities and tell us what they mean in plain
language, I would let the matter rest in their abler
hands, but of this there does not seem much chance
at present.

I wish there was, for in spite of the interest I have
felt in working the theory out and the information I
have been able to collect while doing so, I must con¬
fess that I have found it somewhat of a white elephant.
It has got me into the hottest of hot water, made a
literary Ishmael of me, lost me friends whom I have
been very sorry to lose, cost me a good deal of money,
done everything to me, in fact, which a good theory
ought not to do. Still, as it seems to have taken up
with me, and no one else is inclined to treat it fairly,
I shall continue to report its developments from time
to time as long as life and health are spared me.
Moreover, Ishmaels are not without their uses, and
they are not a drug in the market just now.

I may now go on to Mr. Spencer.

( 20 )

CHAPTER II.

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

Mr. Herbert Spencer wrote to the Athenceum (April
5, 1884), and quoted certain passages from the 1855
edition of his “Principles of Psychology,” “ the meanings
and implications ” from which he contended were suffi¬
ciently clear. The passages he quoted were as fol¬
lows: —

“ Though it is manifest that reflex and instinctive sequences
are not determined by the experiences of the individual
organism manifesting them, yet there still remains the hypo¬
thesis that they are determined by the experiences of the race
of organisms forming its ancestry, which by infinite repetition
in countless successive generations have established these
sequences as organic relations” (p. 526).

“ The modified nervous tendencies produced by such new
habits of life are also bequeathed ” (p. 526).

“ That is to say, the tendencies to certain combinations of
psychical changes have become organic ” (p. 52 7).

“ The doctrine that the connections among our ideas are
determined by experience must, in consistency, be extended
not only to all the connections established by the accumulated
experiences of every individual, but to all those established by
the accumulated experiences of every race ” (p. 529).

“ Here, then, we have one of the simpler forms of instinct
which, under the requisite conditions, must necessarily be
established by accumulated experiences” (p. 547).

“ And manifestly, if the organisation of inner relations, in
correspondence with outer relations, results from a continual
registration of experiences,” &c. (p. 551).

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

“ On the one hand, Instinct may be regarded as a kind of
organised memory ; on the other hand, Memory may be
regarded as a kind of incipient instinct” (pp. 555-6.)

“ Memory, then, pertains to all that class of psychical states
which are in process of being organised. It continues so long as
the organising of them continues; and disappears when the
organisation of them is complete. In the advance of the corre¬
spondence, each more complex class of phenomena which the
organism acquires the power of recognising is responded to at
first irregularly and uncertainly ; and there is then a weak re¬
membrance of the relations. By multiplication of experiences
this remembrance becomes stronger, and the response more
certain. By further multiplication of experiences the internal
relations are at last automatically organised in correspondence
with the external ones ; and so conscious memory passes into
unconscious or organic memory. At the same time, a new and
still more complex order of experiences is thus rendered appre¬
ciable ; the relations they present occupy the memory in place of
the simpler one ; they become gradually organised ; and, like
the previous ones, are succeeded by others more complex still ”
(P- 563).

“Just as we saw that the establishment of those compound
reflex actions which we call instincts is comprehensible on
the principle that inner relations are, by perpetual repetition,
organised into correspondence with outer relations ; so the
establishment of those consolidated, those indissoluble, those
instinctive mental relations constituting our ideas of Space
and Time, is comprehensible on the same principle ” (p. 579).

In a book published a few weeks before Mr.
Spencer’s letter appeared I had said that though
Mr. Spencer at times closely approached Professor
Hering and “ Life and Habit,” he had nevertheless no¬
where shown that he considered memory and heredity
to be parts of the same story and parcel of one another.
In his letter to the Atlicnceum , indeed, he does not
profess to have upheld this view, except “ by implica-

* Selections, &c., and Remarks on Romanes’ “Mental Intelligence
in Animals,” Triibner & Co., 18S4, pp. 22S, 229.

22 LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

tions ; ” nor yet, though in the course of the six or
seven years that had elapsed since “ Life and Habit ”
was published I had brought out more than one book
to support my earlier one, had he said anything during
those years to lead me to suppose that I was trespass¬
ing upon ground already taken by himself. Nor, again,
had he said anything which enabled me to appeal to
his authority — which I should have been only too
glad to do ; at last, however, he wrote, as I have said,
to the Athenceum a letter which, indeed, made no
express claim, and nowhere mentioned myself, but
“ the meanings and implications ” from which were
this time as clear as could be desired, and amount to
an order to Professor Hering and myself to stand aside.

The question is, whether the passages quoted by
Mr. Spencer, or any others that can be found in his
works, show that he regarded heredity in all its mani¬
festations as a mode of memory. I submit that this
conception is not derivable from Mr. Spencer’s writings,
and that even the passages in which he approaches it
most closely are unintelligible till read by the light of
Professor Hering’s address and of “ Life and Habit.”

True, Mr. Spencer made abundant use of such expres¬
sions as “ the experience of the race,” “ accumulated
experiences,” and others like them, but he did not
explain — and it was here the difficulty lay — how a
race could have any experience at all. We know
what we mean when we say that an individual has
had experience ; we mean that he- is the same person
now (in the common use of the words), on the occasion
of some present action, as the one who performed a

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

like action at some past time or times, and that he
remembers how he acted before, so as to be able to
turn his past action to account, gaining in proficiency
through practice. Continued personality and memory
are the elements that constitute experience ; where
these are present there may, and commonly will, be
experience ; where they are absent the word “ experi¬
ence ” cannot properly be used.

Formerly we used to see an individual as one, and
a race as many. We now see that though this is true
as far as it goes, it is by no means the whole truth,
and that in certain important respects it is the race
that is one, and the individual many. We all admit
and understand this readily enough now, but it was
not understood when Mr. Spencer wrote the passages
he adduced in the letter to the Athenceum above
referred to. In the then state of our ideas a race was
only a succession of individuals, each one of them new
persons, and as such incapable of profiting by the
experience of its predecessors except in the very limited
number of cases where oral teaching, or, as in recent
times, writing, was possible. The thread of life was,
as I have elsewhere said, remorselessly shorn between
each successive generation, and the importance of the
physical and psychical connection between parents and
offspring had been quite, or nearly quite, lost sight of.
It seems strange how this could ever have been allowed
to come about, but it should be remembered that the
Church in the Middle Ages would strongly discourage
attempts to emphasize a connection that would raise
troublesome questions as to who in a future state was

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

to be responsible for what ; and, after all, for nine
purposes of life out of ten the generally received
opinion that each person is himself and nobody else is
on many grounds the most convenient. Every now and
then, however, there comes a tenth purpose, for which
the continued personality side of the connection between
successive generations is as convenient as the new
personality side is for the remaining nine, and these
tenth purposes — some of which are not unimportant —
are obscured and fulfilled amiss owing to the complete¬
ness with which the more commonly needed conception
has overgrown the other.

Neither view is more true than the other, but the
one was wanted every hour and minute of the day, and
was therefore kept, so to speak, in stock, and in one of
the most accessible places of our mental storehouse,
while the other was so seldom asked for that it became
not worth while to keep it. By-and-by it was found
so troublesome to send out for it, and so hard to come
by even then, that people left off selling it at all, and
if any one wanted it he must think it out at home as
best he could ; this was troublesome, so by common
consent the world decided no longer to busy itself with
the continued personality of successive generations —
which was all very well until it also decided to busy
itself with the theory of descent with modification. On
the introduction of a foe so inimical to many of our
pre-existing ideas the balance of power among them
was upset, and a readjustment became necessary, which
is still far from having attained the next settlement
that seems likely to be reasonably permanent.

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

To change the illustration, the ordinary view is true
for seven places of decimals, and this commonly is
enough ; occasions, however, have now arisen when
the error caused by neglect of the omitted places is
appreciably disturbing, and we must have three or four
more. Mr. Spencer showed no more signs of seeing
that he must supply these, and make personal identity
continue between successive generations before talking
about inherited (as opposed to post-natal and educa¬
tional) experience, than others had done before him ;
the race with him, as with every one else till recently,
was not one long individual living indeed in pulsa¬
tions, so to speak, but no more losing continued
personality by living in successive generations, than
an individual loses it by living in consecutive days ;
a race was simply a succession of individuals, each one
of which was held to be an entirely new person, and
was regarded exclusively, or very nearly so, from this
point of view.

When I wrote “ Life and Habit ” I knew that the
words “ experience of the race ” sounded familiar, and
were going about in magazines and newspapers, but I
did not know where they came from; if I had, I
should have given their source. To me they conveyed
no meaning, and vexed me as an attempt to make me
take stones instead of bread, and to palm off an illus¬
tration upon me as though it were an explanation.
When I had worked the matter out in my own way,
I saw that the illustration, with certain additions,
would become an explanation, but I saw also that
neither he who had adduced it nor any one else could

2 6

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

have seen how right he was, till much had been said
which had not, so far as I knew, been said yet, and
which undoubtedly would have been said if people had
seen their way to saying it.

“ What is this talk,” I wrote, “ which is made about
the experience of the race, as though the experience
of one man could profit another who knows nothing
about him ? If a man eats his dinner it nourishes
him and not his neighbour ; if he learns a difficult art
it is he that can do it and not his neighbour ” (“ Life
and Habit,” p. 49).

When I wrote thus in 1877, if was not generally
seen that though the father is not nourished by the
dinners that the son eats, yet the son was fed when
the father ate before he begot him.

“Is there any way,” I continued, “of showing that
this experience of the race about which so much is
said without the least attempt to show in what way
it may, or does, become the experience of the indivi¬
dual, is in sober seriousness the experience of one
single being only, who repeats on a great many
different occasions, and in slightly different ways, cer¬
tain performances with which he has already become
exceedingly familiar ? ”

I felt, as every one else must have felt who reflected
upon the expression in question, that it was fallacious
till this was done. When I first began to write
“ Life and Habit ” I did not believe it could be done,
but when I had gone right up to the end, as it were,
of my cul dc sac, I saw the path which led straight to
the point I had despaired of reaching — I mean I saw

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

that personality could not be broken as between gene¬
rations, without also breaking it between the years,
days, and moments of a man’s life. What differen¬
tiates “ Life and Habit ” from the “ Principles of
Psychology ” is the prominence given to continued
personal identity, and hence to bond fide, memory, as
between successive generations ; but surely this makes
the two books differ widely.

Ideas can be changed to almost any extent in
almost any direction, if the change is brought about
gradually and in accordance with the rules of all
development. As in music we may take almost any
possible discord with pleasing effect if we have pre¬
pared and resolved it rightly, so our ideas will outlive
and outgrow almost any modification which is ap¬
proached and quitted in such a way as to fuse the
old and new harmoniously. Words are to ideas what
the fairy invisible cloak was to the prince who wore
it — only that the prince was seen till he put on the
cloak, whereas ideas are unseen until they don the
robe of words which reveals them to us ; the words,
however, and the ideas, should be such as fit each
other and stick to one another in our minds as
soon as they are brought together, or the ideas will
fly off, and leave the words void of that spirit by the
aid of which alone they can become transmuted into
physical action and shape material things with their
own impress. Whether a discord is too violent or
no, depends on what we have been accustomed to,
and on how widely the new differs from the old, but
in no case can we fuse and assimilate more than a

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

very little new at a time without exhausting our
tempering power — and hence presently our temper.

Mr. Spencer appears to have forgotten that though
cle minimis non curat lex, — though all laws fail when
applied to trifles, — yet too sudden a change in the
manner in which our ideas are associated is as cata¬
clysmic and subversive of healthy evolution as are
material convulsions, or too violent revolutions in
politics. This must always be the case, for change
is essentially miraculous, and the only lawful home of
the miracle is in the microscopically small. Here,
indeed, miracles were in the beginning, are now, and
ever shall be, but we are deadened if they are required
of us on a scale which is visible to the naked eye.
If we are told to work them our hands fall nerveless
down ; if, come what may, we must do or die, we are
more likely to die than to succeed in doing. If we
are required to believe them — which only means to
fuse them with our other ideas — we either take the
law into our own hands, and our minds being in the
dark fuse something easier of assimilation, and say we
have fused the miracle ; or if we play more fairly and
insist on our minds swallowing and assimilating it,
we weaken our judgments, and pro tanto kill our souls.
If we stick out beyond a certain point we go mad, as
fanatics, or at the best make Coleridges of ourselves ;
and yet upon a small scale these same miracles are
the breath and essence of life ; to cease to work them
is to die. And by miracle I do not merely mean some¬
thing new, strange, and not very easy of comprehension
— I mean something which violates every canon of

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

thought which in the palpable world we are accustomed
to respect ; something as alien to, and inconceivable by,
us as contradiction in terms, the destructibility of force
or matter, or the creation of something out of nothing.
This, which when writ large maddens and kills, writ
small is our meat and drink ; it attends each minutest
and most impalpable detail of the ceaseless fusion and
diffusion in which change appears to us as consisting,
and which we recognise as growth and decay, or as
life and death.

Claude Bernard says, “ Rien ne naif, rien ne se crde,
tout se continue. La nature ne nous offre le spectacle
d’aucune creation, elle est dune dterndle continuation ; ” *
but surely he is insisting upon one side of the truth
only, to the neglect of another which is just as real,
and just as important ; he might have said, “ Rien ne
se continue, tout nait , tout se crde. La nature ne nous
offre le spectacle d’aucune continuation. Rile est d’une
dernelle creation ; ” for change is no less patent a fact
than continuity, and, indeed, the two stand or fall
together. True, discontinuity, where development is
normal, is on a very small scale, but this is only the
difference between looking at distances on a small
instead of a large map ; we cannot have even the
smallest change without a small partial corresponding
discontinuity ; on a small scale — too small, indeed,
for us to cognise — these breaks in continuity, each
one of which must, so far as our understanding goes,
rank as a creation, are as essential a factor of the

* Quoted by M. Vianna De Lima in his “Expose Sommaire,” &c.,
p. 6. Paris, Delagrave, 1886.

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

phenomena we see around us, as is the other factor
that they shall normally be on too small a scale for
us to find it out. Creations, then, there must be, but
they must be so small that practically they are no
creations. We must have a continuity in discon¬
tinuity, and a discontinuity in continuity ; that is
to say, we can only conceive the idea of change at all
by the help of flat contradiction in terms. It comes,
therefore, to this, that if we are to think fluently and
harmoniously upon any subject into which change
enters (and there is no conceivable subject into which
it does not), we must begin by flying in the face
of every rule that professors of the art of thinking
have drawn up for our instruction. These rules may
be good enough as servants, but we have let them be¬
come the worst of masters, forgetting that philosophy
is made for man, not man for philosophy. Logic has
been the true Tower of Babel, which we have thought
to build so that we might climb up into the heavens,
and have no more miracle, but see God and live — nor
has confusion of tongues failed to follow on our
presumption. Truly St. Paul said well that the just
shall live by faith ; and the question “ By what faith ? ”
is a detail of minor moment, for there are as many
faiths as species, whether of plants or animals, and
each of them is in its own way both living and saving.

All, then, whether fusion or diffusion, whether of
ideas or things, is miraculous. It is the two in one,
and at the same time one in two, which is only two
and two making five put before us in another shape ;
yet this fusion — so easy to think so long as it is not

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

thought about, and so unthinkable if we try to think
it — is, as it were, the matrix from which our more
thinkable thought is taken ; it is the cloud gathering
in the unseen world from which the waters of life
descend in an impalpable dew. Granted that all,
whether fusion or diffusion, whether of ideas or things,
is, if we dwell upon it and take it seriously, an out¬
rage upon our understandings which common sense
alone enables us to brook ; granted that it carries
with it a distinctly miraculous element which should
vitiate the whole process ah initio , still, if we have
faith we can so work these miracles as Orpheus-like
to charm denizens of the unseen world into the seen
again — provided we do not look back, and provided
also we do not try to charm half-a-dozen Eurydices
at a time. To think is to fuse and diffuse ideas, and
to fuse and diffuse ideas is to feed. We can all feed,
and by consequence within reasonable limits we can
fuse ideas ; or we can fuse ideas, and by consequence
within reasonable limits we can feed ; we know not
which comes first, the food or the ideas, but we must
not overtax our strength ; the moment we do this we
taste of death.

It is in the closest connection with this that we
must chew our food fine before we can digest it, and
that the same food given in large lumps will choke
and kill which in small pieces feeds us ; or, again,
that that which is impotent as a pellet may be
potent as a gas. Food is very thoughtful : through
thought it comes, and back through thought it shall
return ; the process of its conversion and compre-

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

hension within our own system is mental as well as
physical, and here, as everywhere else with mind and
evolution, there must be a cross, but not too wide a
cross — that is to say, there must be a miracle, but not
upon a large scale. Granted that no one can draw a
clean line and define the limits within which a miracle
is healthy working and beyond which it is unwhole¬
some, any more than he can prescribe the exact
degree of fineness to which we must comminute our
food ; granted, again, that some can do more than
others, and that at times all men sport, so to speak,
and surpass themselves, still wTe know as a general rule
near enough, and find that the strongest can do but
very little at a time, and, to return to Mr. Spencer, the
fusion of two such hitherto unassociated ideas as race
and experience was a miracle beyond our strength.

Assuredly when Mr. Spencer wrote the passages
he quoted in the letter to the Athenaeum above
referred to, we were not in the habit of thinking of
any one as able to remember things that had happened
before he had been born or thought of. This notion
will still strike many of my non-readers as harsh and
strained ; no such discord, therefore, should have been
taken unprepared, and when taken it should have been
resolved with pomp and circumstance. Mr. Spencer,
however, though he took it continually, never either
prepared it or resolved it at all, but by using the words
“ experience of the race ” sprang this seeming paradox
upon us, with the result that his words were barren.
They were barren because they were incoherent ; they
were incoherent because they were approached and

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

quitted too suddenly. While we were realising “ ex¬
perience ” our minds excluded “ race,” inasmuch as
experience was an idea we had been accustomed
hitherto to connect only with the individual ; while
realising the idea “ race,” for the same reason, we as a
matter of course excluded experience. We were re¬
quired to fuse two ideas that were alien to one another,
without having had those other ideas presented to us
which would alone flux them. The absence of these —
which indeed were not immediately ready to hand, or
Mr. Spencer would have doubtless grasped them — made
nonsense of the whole thing ; we saw the ideas propped
up as two cards one against the other, on one of
Mr. Spencer’s pages, only to find that they had fallen
asunder before we had turned over to the next, so we
put down his book resentfully, as written by one who
did not know what to do with his meaning even if he
had one, or bore it meekly while he chastised us with
scorpions, as Mr. Darwin had done with whips, accord-
to our temperaments.

I may say, in passing, that the barrenness of inco¬
herent ideas, and the sterility of widely distant species
and genera of animals and plants, are one in principle
— the sterility of hybrids being just as much due to
inability to fuse widely unlike and unfamiliar ideas
into a coherent whole, as barrenness of ideas is, and,
indeed, resolving itself ultimately into neither more
nor less than barrenness of ideas — that is to say, into
inability to think at all, or at any rate to think as
their neighbours do.

If Mr. Spencer had made it clear that the genera-

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

tions of any race are bond fide united by a common
personality, and that in virtue of being so united each
generation remembers (within, of course, the limits
to which all memory is subject) what happened to
it while still in the persons of its progenitors — then
his order to Professor Hering and myself should be
immediately obeyed ; but this was just what was at
once most wanted, and least done by Mr. Spencer.
Even in the passages given above — passages col¬
lected by Mr. Spencer himself — this point is altogether
ignored ; make it clear as Professor Hering made it —
put continued personality and memory in the foreground
as Professor Hering did, instead of leaving them to be
discovered “by implications,” and then such expressions
as “ accumulated experiences ” and “ experience of the
race ” become luminous ; till this had been done they
were “ Vox et prceterea niliil.”

To sum up briefly. The passages quoted by Mr.
Spencer from his “ Principles of Psychology ” can
hardly be called clear, even now that Professor Hering
and others have thrown light upon them. If, indeed,
they had been clear, Mr. Spencer would probably have
seen what they necessitated, and found the way of
meeting the difficulties of the case which occurred to
Professor Hering and myself. Till we wrote, very few
writers had even suggested this. The idea that off¬
spring was only “ an elongation or branch proceeding
from its parents ” had scintillated in the ingenious
brain of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and in that of the
designer of Jesse tree windows, but it had kindled
no fire ; it now turns out that Canon Kingsley had

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

once called instinct inherited memory,'"' but the idea,
if born alive at all, died on the page on which it saw
light: Professor Ray Lankester, again, called attention
to Professor Hering’s address {Nature, July 13, 1876),
but no discussion followed, and the matter dropped
without having produced visible effect. As for offspring
remembering in any legitimate sense of the words
what it had done, and what had happened to it, be¬
fore it was born, no such notion was understood to
have been gravely mooted till very recently. I doubt
whether Mr. Spencer and Mr. Romanes would accept
this even now, when it is put thus undisguisedly ; but
this is what Professor Hering and I mean, and it is
the only thing that should be meant, by those who
speak of instinct as inherited memory. Mr. Spencer
cannot maintain that these two startling novelties
went without saying “ by implication ” from the use
of such expressions as “ accumulated experiences ” or
“ experience of the race.”

* I have given the passage in full on p. 254a of my “Selections, &c.”
I observe that Canon Kingsley felt exactly the same difficulty that I
had felt myself, and saw also how alone it could be met. He makes
the wood-wren say, “Something told him his mother had done it
before him, and he was flesh of her flesh, life of her life, and had
inherited her instinct (as we call hereditary memory, to avoid the
trouble of finding out what it is and how it comes).” — Fraser, June 1S67.
Canon Kingsley felt he must insist on the continued personality of the
two generations before he could talk about inherited memory. On
the other hand, though he does indeed speak of this as almost a
synonym for instinct, he seems not to have realised how right he was,
and implies that we should find some fuller and more satisfactory
explanation behind this, only that we are too lazy to look for it.

( 36 )

CHAPTER III.

ME. HERBERT SPENCER ( Continued ).

Whether they ought to have gone or not, they did
not go.

When “Life and Habit” was first published no one
considered Mr. Spencer to be maintaining the pheno¬
mena of heredity to be in reality phenomena of memory.
When, for example, Professor Piay Lankester first called
attention to Professor Hering’s address, he did not
understand Mr. Spencer to be intending this. “ Pro¬
fessor Hering,” he wrote ( Nature , July 13, 1876),
“ helps us to a comprehensive view of the nature of
heredity and adaptation, by giving us the word
‘ memory/ conscious or unconscious, for the continuity
of Mr. Spencer’s polar forces or polarities of physio¬
logical units.” He evidently found the prominence
given to memory a help to him which he had not
derived from reading Mr. Spencer’s works.

When, again, he attacked me in the Athenceum
(March 29, 1 884), he spoke of my “tardy recognition ”
of the fact that Professor Hering had preceded me
“ in treating all manifestations of heredity as a form
of memory.” Professor Lankester’s words could have

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

no force if lie held that any other writer, and much
less so well known a writer as Mr. Spencer, had pre¬
ceded me in putting forward the theory in question.

When Mr. Romanes reviewed “ Unconscious
Memory” in Nature (January 27, 1881) the notion
of a “ race-memory,” to use his own words, was still so
new to him that he declared it “ simply absurd ” to
suppose that it could “ possibly be fraught with any
benefit to science,” and with him too it was Professor
Hering who had anticipated me in the matter, not Mr.
Spencer.

In his “Mental Evolution in Animals” (p. 296) he
said that Canon Kingsley, writing in 1867, was the
first to advance the theory that instinct is inherited
.memory ; he could not have said this if Mr. Spencer
had been understood to have been upholding this view
for the last thirty years.

Mr. A. R. Wallace reviewed “Life and Habit” in
Nature (March 27, 1879), but he did not find the line
I had taken a familiar one, as he surely must have
done if it had followed easily by implication from Mr.
Spencer’s works. He called it “ an ingenious and
paradoxical explanation ” which was evidently new to
him. He concluded by saying that it “ might yet
afford a clue to some of the deepest mysteries of the
organic world.”

Professor Mivart, when he reviewed my books on
Evolution in the American Catholic Quarterly Review
(July 1881), said, “Mr. Butler is not only perfectly
logical and consistent in the startling consequences he
deduces from his principles, but,” &c. Professor Mivart

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

could not have found my consequences startling if they
had already been insisted upon for many years by one
of the best-known writers of the day.

The reviewer of “ Evolution Old and New ” in the
Saturday Review (March 3 1, 1879), of whom all lean
venture to say is that he or she is a person whose
name carries weight in matters connected with biology,
though he (for brevity) was in the humour for seeing
everything objectionable in me that could be seen,
still saw no Mr. Spencer in me. He said — “ Mr.
Butler's own particular contribution to the terminology
of Evolution is the phrase two or three times repeated
with some emphasis ” (I repeated it not two or three
times only, but whenever and wherever I could venture
to do so without wearying the reader beyond endur¬
ance) “ oneness of personality between parents and
offspring.” The writer proceeded to reprobate this in
language upon which a Huxley could hardly improve,
but as he declares himself unable to discover what it
means, it may be presumed that the idea of continued
personality between successive generations was new to
him.

When Dr. Francis Darwin called on me a day or
two before “ Life and Habit ” went to the press, he
said the theory which had pleased him more than any
he had seen for some time was one which referred all
life to memory ; * he doubtless intended “ which re¬
ferred all the phenomena of heredity to memory.”
He then mentioned Professor Pay Lankester’s article
in Nature, of which I had not heard, but he said

* See “Unconscious Memory,” pp. 33. 34-

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

nothing about Mr. Spencer, and spoke of the idea as
one which had been quite new to him.

The above names comprise (excluding Mr. Spencer
himself) perhaps those of the best-known writers on
evolution that can be mentioned as now before the
public ; it is curious that Mr. Spencer should be the
only one of them. to see any substantial resemblance
between the “ Principles of Psychology ” and Professor
Hering’s address and “ Life and Habit.”

I ought, perhaps, to say that Mr. Eomanes, writing
to the Athenaeum (March 8, 1884), took a different
view of the value of the theory of inherited memory
to the one he took in 1 8 8 1 .

In 1881 he said it was “ simply absurd ” to suppose
it could “ possibly be fraught with any benefit to
science” or “ reveal any truth of profound significance
in 1884 he said of the same theory, that “it formed
the backbone of all the previous literature upon
instinct ” by Darwin, Spencer, Lewes, Piske, and
Spalding, “ not to mention their numerous followers,
and is by all of them elaborately stated as clearly as
any theory can be stated in words.”

Few except Mr. Ptomanes will say this. I grant it
ought to “ have formed the backbone,” &c., and ought
“ to have been elaborately stated,” &c., but when I
wrote “ Life and Habit ” neither Mr. Ptomanes nor any
one else understood it to have been even glanced at
by more than a very few, and as for having been
“ elaborately stated,” it had been stated by Professor
Hering as elaborately as it could be stated within the
limits of an address of only twenty-two pages, but

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

with, this exception it had never been stated at all.
It is not too much to say that “ Life and Habit,”
when it first came out, was considered so startling a
paradox that people would not believe in my desire to
he taken seriously, or at any rate were able to pretend
that they thought I was not writing seriously.

Mr. Eomanes knows this just as well as all must
do who keep an eye on what is said about evolution ;
lie himself, indeed, had said ( Nature , Jan. 27, 1881)
that so long as I “aimed only at entertaining” my
“ readers by such works as ‘ Erewhon ’ and ‘ Life and
Habit ’ ” (as though these books were of kindred
character) I was in my proper sphere. It would be
doing too little credit to Mr. Eomanes’ intelligence to
suppose him not to have known when he said this
that “ Life and Habit ” was written as seriously as my
subsequent books on evolution, but it suited him at
the moment to join those who professed to consider
it another book of paradoxes such as, I suppose,
“ Erewhon ” had been, so lie classed the two together.
He could not have done this unless enough people
thought, or said they thought, the books akin, to give
colour, to his doing so.

One alone of all my reviewers has, to my know¬
ledge, brought Mr. Spencer against me. This was a
writer in the St. James's Gazette (Dec. 2, 1880). I
challenged him in a letter which appeared (Dec. 8,
1880), and said, “I would ask your reviewer to be
kind enough to refer your readers to those passages
of Mr. Spencer’s “ Principles of Psychology ” which
in any direct intelligible way refer the phenomena of

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

instinct and heredity generally, to memory on the part
of offspring of the action it bond fide took in the
persons of its forefathers.” The reviewer made no
reply, and I concluded, as I have since found correctly,
that he could not find the passages.

True, in his “ Principles of Psychology ” (vol ii.
p. 195) Mr. Spencer says that we have only to expand
the doctrine that all intelligence is acquired through
experience “ so as to make it include with the expe¬
rience of each individual the experiences of all ances¬
tral individuals,” &c. This is all very good, but it is
much the same as saying, “ We have only got to stand
on our heads and we shall be able to do so and so.”
We did not see our way to standing on our heads, and
Mr. Spencer did not help us; we had been accus¬
tomed, as I am afraid I must have said usque ad
nauseam already, to lose sight of the physical connec¬
tion existing between parents and offspring ; we under¬
stood from the marriage service that husband and wife
were in a sense one flesh, but not that parents and
children were so also ; and without this conception of
the matter, which in its way is just as true as the
more commonly received one, we could not extend the
experience of parents to offspring. It was not in the
bond or nexus of our ideas to consider experience as
appertaining to more than a single individual in the
common acceptance of the term ; these two ideas were
so closely bound together that wPerever the one went
the other wTent per force. Here, indeed, in the very
passage of Mr. Spencer’s just referred to, the race is
throughout regarded as “ a series of individuals ” —

O O

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

without an attempt to call attention to that other
view, in virtue of which we are able to extend to many
an idea we had been accustomed to confine to one.

In his chapter on Memory, Mr. Spencer certainly
approaches the Heringian view. He says, “ On the
one hand, Instinct may be regarded as a kind of.
organised memory ; on the other, Memory may be
regarded as a kind of incipient instinct ” (“ Principles
of Psychology,” ed. 2, vol. i. p. 445). Here the ball
has fallen into his hands, but if he had got firm hold
of it he could not have written, “Instinct may be re¬
garded as a kind of, &c. ; ” to us there is neither “ may
be regarded as ” nor “ kind of ” about it ; we require,
“ Instinct is inherited memory,” with an explanation
making it intelligible how memory can come to be
inherited at all. I do not like, again, calling memory
“ a kind of incipient instinct ; ” as Mr. Spencer puts
them the words have a pleasant antithesis, but
“ instinct is inherited memory ” covers all the ground,
and to say that memory is uninherited instinct is
surplusage.

Nor does he stick to it long when he says that
“ instinct is a kind of organised memory,” for two pages
later he says that memory, to be memory at all, must
be tolerably conscious or deliberate ; he, therefore (vol.
i. p. 447), denies that there can be such a thing as
unconscious memory ; but without this it is impossible
for us to see instinct as the “kind of organised memory”
which he has just been calling it, inasmuch as in¬
stinct is notably undeliberate and unreflecting.

A few pages farther on (vol. i. p. 452) he finds

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

himself driven to unconscious memory after all, and
says that “ conscious memory passes into unconscious
or organic memory.” Having admitted unconscious
memory, he declares (vol. i. p. 45 o) that “ as fast as
those connections among psychical states, which we
form in memory, grow by constant repetition automatic
— they cease to he part of memory ,” or, in other words,
he again denies that there can be an unconscious
memory.

Mr. Spencer doubtless saw that he was involved in
contradiction in terms, and having always understood
that contradictions in terms were very dreadful things
— which, of course, under some circumstances they are
— thought it well so to express himself that his readers
should be more likely to push on than dwell on what
was before them at the moment. I should be the last
to complain of him merely on the ground that he could
not escape contradiction in terms : who can ? When
facts conflict, contradict one another, melt into one
another as the colours of the spectrum so insensibly
that none can say where one begins and the other ends,
contradictions in terms become first fruits of thought
and speech. They are the basis of intellectual con¬
sciousness, in the same way that a physical obstacle
is the basis of physical sensation. No opposition, no
sensation, applies as much to the psychical as to the
physical kingdom, as soon as these two have got well
above the horizon of our thoughts and can be seen as
two. No contradiction, no consciousness ; no cross, no
crown ; contradictions are the small deadlocks without
which there is no going ; going is our sense of a sue-

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

cession of small impediments or deadlocks ; it is a
succession of cutting Gordian knots, which on a small
scale please or pain as the case may be ; on a larger,
give an ecstasy of pleasure, or shock to the extreme
of endurance ; and on a still larger, kill whether they be
on the right side or the wrong. Nature, as I said in
“ Life and Habit,” hates that any principle should
breed hermaphroditically, but will give to each an help¬
meet for it which shall cross it and be the undoing of
it ; and in the undoing, do ; and in the doing, undo,
and so ad infinitum. Cross-fertilisation is just as neces¬
sary for continued fertility of ideas as for that of
organic life, and the attempt to frown this or that
down merely on the ground that it involves contradic¬
tion in terms, without at the same time showing that
the contradiction is on a larger scale than healthy
thought can stomach, argues either small sense or
small sincerity on the part of those who make it.
The contradictions employed by Mr. Spencer are
objectionable, not on the ground of their being con¬
tradictions at all, but on the ground of their being
blinked, and used unintelligently.

But though it is not possible for any one to get a
clear conception of Mr. Spencer’s meaning, we may
say with more confidence what it was that he did not
mean. He did not mean to make memory the key¬
stone of his system ; he has none of that sense of
the unifying, binding force of memory which Professor
Hering has so well expressed, nor does he show any
signs of perceiving the far-reaching consequences that
ensue if the phenomena of heredity are considered as

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

phenomena of memory. Thus, when he is dealing
with the phenomena of old age (vol. i. p. 538, ed. 2)
he does not ascribe them to lapse and failure of
memory, nor surmise the principle underlying longevity.
He never mentions memory in connection with heredity
without presently saying something which makes us
involuntarily think of a man missing an easy catch
at cricket ; it is only rarely, however, that he connects
the two at all. I have only been able to find the
word “ inherited ” or any derivative of the verb “ to
inherit ” in connection with memory once in all the
1300 long pages of the “Principles of Psychology.”
It occurs in vol. ii. p. 200, 2d ed., where the words stand,
“ Memory, inherited or acquired.” I submit that this
was unintelligible when Mr. Spencer wrote it, for want
of an explanation which he never gave ; I submit, also,
that he could not have left it unexplained, nor yet as
an unrepeatecl expression not introduced till late in
his work, if he had had any idea of its pregnancy.

At any rate, whether he intended to imply what
he now implies that he intended to imply (for Mr.
Spencer, like the late Mr. Darwin, is fond of qualifying
phrases), I have shown that those most able and will¬
ing to understand him did not take him to mean what
he now appears anxious to have it supposed that
he meant. Surely, moreover, if he had meant it he
would have spoken sooner, when he saw his meaning
had been missed. I can, however, have no hesitation
in saying that if I had known the “ Principles of
Psychology ” earlier, as well as I know the work now,
I should have used it largely.

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

It may be interesting, before we leave Mr. Spencer, to
see whether he even now assigns to continued person¬
ality and memory the place assigned to it by Professor
Hering and myself. I will therefore give the concluding
words of the letter to the Athenaeum, already referred
to, in which he tells us to stand aside. He writes : —

“ I still hold that inheritance of functionally pro¬
duced modifications is the chief factor throughout the
higher stages of organic evolution, bodily as well as
mental (see ‘Principles of Biology,’ i. 1 66), while I
recognise the truth that throughout the lower stages
survival of the fittest is the chief factor, and in the
lowest the almost exclusive factor.”

This is the same confused and confusing utterance
which Mr. Spencer has been giving us any time this
thirty years. According to him the fact that varia¬
tions can be inherited and accumulated has less to do
with the first developments of organic life, than the
fact that if a square organism happens to get into
a square hole, it will live longer and more happily
than a square organism which happens to get into
a round one ; he declares “ the survival of the fittest ”
— and this is nothing but the fact that those who
“ fit ” best into their surroundings will live longest
and most comfortably — to have more to do with
the development of the amoeba into, we will say,
a mollusc than heredity itself. True, “ inheritance of
functionally produced modifications ” is allowed to be
the chief factor throughout the “ higher stages of
organic evolution,” but it has very little to do in the
lower ; in these “ the almost exclusive factor ” is

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

not heredity, or inheritance, hut “ survival of the
fittest.”

Of course we know that Mr. Spencer does not
believe this ; of course, also, all who are fairly well
up in the history of the development theory will see
why Mr. Spencer has attempted to draw this distinc¬
tion between the “ factors ” of the development of the
higher and lower forms of life ; but no matter how or
why Mr. Spencer has been led to say what he has,
he has no business to have said it. What can we
think of a writer who, after so many years of writing
upon his subject, in a passage in which he should
make his meaning doubly clear, inasmuch as he is
claiming ground taken by other writers, declares
that though hereditary use and disuse, or, to use his
own words, “ the inheritance of functionally produced
modifications/’ is indeed very important in connec¬
tion with the development of the higher forms of
life, yet heredity itself has little or nothing to do
with that of the lower ? Variations, whether pro¬
duced functionally or not, can only be perpetuated
and accumulated because they can be inherited ; —
and this applies just as much to the lower as to the
higher forms of life ; the question which Professor
Hering and I have tried to answer is, “ How comes it
that anything can be inherited at all ? In virtue of
what power is it that offspring can repeat and improve
upon the performances of their parents ? ” Our answer
was, “ Because in a very valid sense, though not per¬
haps in the one most usually understood, there is con¬
tinued personality and an abiding memory between

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

successive generations.” Iiow does Mr. Spencer’s con¬
fession of faith touch this ? If any meaning can be
extracted from his words, he is no more supporting
this view now than he was when he wrote the passages
he has adduced to show that he was supporting it
thirty years ago; but after all no coherent meaning
can be got out of Mr. Spencer’s letter — except, of
course, that Professor Hering and myself are to stand
aside. I have abundantly shown that I am very
ready to do this in favour of Professor Hering, but see
no reason for admitting Mr. Spencer’s claim to have
been among the forestalled of “ Life and Habit.”

( 49 )

CHAPTER IV * J

ME. ROMANES’ “ MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS.”

Without raising the unprofitable question how Mr.
Romanes, in spite of the indifference with which he
treated the theory of Inherited Memory in 1881,
came, in 1883, to be sufficiently imbued with a sense
of its importance, I still cannot afford to dispense
with the weight of his authority, and in this chapter
will show how closely he not infrequently approaches
the Heringian position.

Thus, he says that the analogies between the memory
with which we are familiar in daily life and hereditary
memory “ are so numerous and precise ” as to justify
us in considering them to be of essentially the same
kind.t

Again, he says that although the memory of milk
shown by new-born infants is “ at all events in large
part hereditary, it is none the less memory ” of a cer¬
tain kind.|

Two lines lower down he writes of “ hereditary

* This chapter is taken almost entirely from my book, “ Selections,
&c. and Remarks on Romanes’ ‘ Mental Evolution in Animals.’ ”
Triibner, 1884.

f Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 113. J Ibid. p. 115.

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

memory or instinct,” thereby implying that instinct
is “hereditary memory. ” “It makes no essential dif¬
ference,” he says, “ whether the past sensation was
actually experienced by the individual itself, or be¬
queathed it, so to speak, by its ancestors.* For it
makes no essential difference whether the nervous
changes . . . were occasioned during the lifetime of
the individual or during that of the species, and after¬
wards impressed by heredity on the individual.”

Lower down on the same page he writes : —

“ As showing how close is the connection between
hereditary memory and instinct,” &c.

And on the following page : —

“ And this shows how closely the phenomena of
hereditary memory are related to those of individual
memory : at this stage . it is practically impossible
to disentangle the effects of hereditary memory from
those of the individual.”

Again : —

“ Another point which we have here to consider is
the part which heredity has played in forming the
perceptive faculty of the individual prior to its own
experience. We have already seen that heredity plays
an important part in forming memory of ancestral
experiences, and thus it is that many animals come
into the world with their power of perception already
largely developed. . . . The wealth of ready-formed
information, and therefore of ready-made powers of
perception, with which many newly-born or newly-
hatched animals are provided, is so great and so

MentalE volution in Animals, p. u 6. Kegan Paul, Nov. 1883.

ROMANES ’ MENTAL EVOLUTION , ETC.

precise that it scarcely requires to be supplemented by
the subsequent experience of the individual.” *

Again : —

“ Instincts probably owe their origin and develop¬
ment to one or other of two principles.

“ I. The first mode of origin consists in natural
selection or survival of the fittest, continuously pre¬
serving actions, &c. &c. . . .

“ II. The second mode of origin is as follows : — By
the effects of habit in successive generations, actions
which were originally intelligent become as it were
stereotyped into permanent instincts. Just as in the
lifetime of the individual adjustive actions which were
originally intelligent may by frequent repetition become
automatic, so in the lifetime of species actions origi¬
nally intelligent may by frequent repetition and heredity
so writs their effects on the nervous system that the
latter is prepared, even before individual experience, to
perform adjustive actions mechanically which in pre¬
vious generations were performed intelligently. This
mode of origin of instincts has been appropriately
called (by Lewes — see “ Problems of Life and Mind ” t)
the ‘ lapsing of intelligence.’ ” +

I may say in passing that in spite of the great
stress laid by Mr. Komanes both in his “ Mental
Evolution in Animals ” and in his letters to the
Athenaeum in March 1884, on Natural Selection as
an originator and developer of instinct, he very soon

* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 1 3 1. Kegan Paul. Nov. 18S3.
+ Vol. I., 3d ed., 1S74, p. 1 4 1 , and Problem I. 21.
t Mental Evolution in Animals, pp. 177, 178. Nov. 1SS3.

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

afterwards let the Natural Selection part of the story
go as completely without saying as I do myself, or as
Mr. Darwin did during the later years of his life.
Writing to Nature, April io, 1884, he said: “To deny
that experience in the course of successive generations is
the source of instinct , is not to meet by way of argu¬
ment the enormous mass of evidence which goes to
prove that this is the casef Here, then, instinct is
referred, without reservation, to “ experience in suc¬
cessive generations,” and this is nonsense unless ex¬
plained as Professor Hering and I explain it. Mr.
Eomanes’ words, in fact, amount to an unqualified
acceptance of the chapter “ Instinct as Inherited
Memory ” given in “ Life and Habit,” of which Mr.
Eomanes in March 1884 wrote in terms which it is
not necessary to repeat.

Later on : —

“ That ‘ practice makes perfect ' is a matter, as I
have previously said, of daily observation. Whether
we regard a juggler, a pianist, or a billiard-player,
a child learning his lesson or an actor his part by
frequently repeating it, or a thousand other illus¬
trations of the same process, we see at once that
there is truth in the cynical definition of a man as
a ‘ bundle of habits.’ And the same, of course, is true
of animals.” *

Prom this Mr. Eomanes goes on to show “that
automatic actions and conscious habits may be in¬
herited,” f and in the course of doing this contends
that “ instincts may be lost by disuse, and conversely

* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 192. f Ibid. p. 195.

ROMANES ’ MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC.

that they may he acquired as instincts by the here¬
ditary transmission of ancestral experience.”

On another page Mr. Eomanes says : —

“ Let us now turn to the second of these two
assumptions, viz., that some at least among migratory
birds must possess, by inheritance alone, a very precise
knowledge of the particular direction to be pursued.
It is without question an astonishing fact that a
young cuckoo should be prompted to leave its foster
parents at a particular season of the year, and without
any guide to show the course previously taken by its
own parents, but this is a fact which must be met by
any theory of instinct which aims at being complete.
ISTow upon our own theory it can only be met by
taking it to be due to inherited memory.” *

A little lower Mr. Eomanes says : “ Of what kind,
then, is the inherited memory on which the young
cuckoo (if not also other migratory birds) depends ?
We can only answer, of the same kind, whatever this
may be, as that upon which the old bird depends.” *

I have given above most of the more marked pas¬
sages which I have been able to find in Mr. Eomanes’
book which attribute instinct to memory, and which
admit that there is no fundamental difference between
the kind of memory with which we are all familiar
and hereditary memory as transmitted from one gene¬
ration to another. But throughout his work there
are passages which suggest, though less obviously, the
same inference.

The passages I have quoted show that Mr. Eomanes

* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 296. Nov. 1883.

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

is upholding the same opinions as Professor Hering’s
and my own, but their effect and tendency is more
plain here than in Mr. Romanes’ own book, where
they are overlaid by nearly 400 long pages of matter
which is not always easy of comprehension.

Moreover, at the same time that I claim the weight
of Mr. Romanes’ authority, I am bound to admit that
I do not find his support satisfactory. The late Mr.
Darwin himself — whose mantle seems to have fallen
more especially and particularly on Mr. Romanes —
could not contradict himself more hopelessly than
Mr. Romanes often does. Indeed in one of the very
passages I have quoted in order to show that Mr.
Romanes accepts the phenomena of heredity as pheno¬
mena of memory, he speaks of “ heredity as playing an
important part in forming memory of ancestral experi¬
ences ; ” so that, whereas I want him to say that the
phenomena of heredity are due to memory, he will
have it that the memory is due to the heredity,
which seems to me absurd.

Over and over again Mr. Romanes insists that it is

heredity which does this or that. Thus it is “ heredity
with natural selection which adapt the anatomical plan
of the ganglia.” * It is heredity which impresses
nervous changes on the individual. t “In the lifetime
of species actions originally intelligent may by fre¬
quent repetition and heredity ,” &c. ; J but he nowhere
tells us what heredity is any more than Messrs. Her¬
bert Spencer, Darwin, and Lewes have done. This,

* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 33. Nov. 1883.
t Ibid. p. 1 16. +_Ibid. p. 178.

ROMANES ’ MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC.

however, is exactly what Professor Hering, whom I
have unwittingly followed, does. He resolves all
phenomena of heredity, whether in respect of body or
mind, into phenomena of memory. He says in effect,
“ A man grows his body as he does, and a bird makes
her nest as she does, because both man and bird
remember having grown body and made nest as they
now do, or very nearly so, on innumerable past occa¬
sions.” He thus, as I have said on an earlier page,
reduces life from an equation of say ioo unknown
quantities to one of 99 only by showing that heredity
and memory, two of the original 100 unknown quan¬
tities, are in reality part of one and the same thing.

That he is right Mr. Romanes seems to me to
admit, though in a very unsatisfactory way.

What, for example, can be more unsatisfactory than
the following ? — Mr. Romanes says that the most
fundamental principle of mental operation is that of
memory, and that this “is the conditio sine qud non of
all mental life” (page 35).

I do not understand Mr. Romanes to hold that
there is any living being which has no mind at all,
and I do understand him to admit that development
of body and mind are closely interdependent.

If, then, “ the most fundamental principle ” of mind
is memory, it follows that memory enters also as a
fundamental principle into development of body. Por
mind and body are so closely connected that nothing
can epfer largely into the one without correspondingly
affecting the other.

On a later page Mr. Romanes speaks point-blank

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

of the new-horn child as “ embodying the results of a
great mass of hereditary experience ” (p. 77), so that
what he is driving at can be collected by those who
take trouble, but is not seen until we call up from
our own knowledge matter whose relevancy does not
appear on the face of it, and until we connect passages
many pages asunder, the first of which may easily be
forgotten before we reach the second. There can be
no doubt, however, that Mr. Romanes does in reality,
like Professor Bering and myself, regard development,
whether of mind or body, as due to memory, for it
is now pretty generally seen to be nonsense to talk
about “hereditary experience” or “hereditary memory”
if anything else is intended.

I have said above that on page 1 1 3 of his recent
work Mr. Romanes declares the analogies between the
memory with which we are familiar in daily life, and
hereditary memory, to be “ so numerous and precise ”
as to justify us in considering them as of one and the
same kind.

This is certainly his meaning, but, with the excep¬
tion of the words within inverted commas, it is not
his language. His own words are these : —

“ Profound, however, as our ignorance unquestionably
is concerning the physical substratum of memory, I
think we are at least justified in regarding this sub¬
stratum as the same both in ganglionic or organic, and
in conscious or psychological memory, seeing that the
analogies between them are so numerous and precise.
Consciousness is but an adjunct which arises when
the physical processes, owing to infrequency of repeti-

ROMANES ’ MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC.

tion, complexity of operation, or other causes, involve
what I have before called ganglionic friction/’

I submit that I have correctly translated Mr.
Bomanes’ meaning, and also that we have a right to
complain of his not saying what he has to say in
words which will involve less “ ganglionic friction ” on
the part of the reader.

Another example may be found on p. 43 of Mr.
Bomanes’ book. “ Lastly,” he writes, “just as innu¬
merable special mechanisms of muscular co-ordinations
are found to be inherited, innumerable special associa¬
tions of ideas are found to be the same, and in one
case as in the other the strength of the organically
imposed connection is found to bear a direct proportion
to the frequency with which in the history of the
species it has occurred.”

Mr. Bomanes is here intending what the reader will
find insisted on on p. 5 1 of “ Life and Habit ; ” but
how difficult he has made what could have been said
intelligibly enough, if there had been nothing but the
reader’s comfort to be considered. Unfortunately that
seems to have been by no means the only thing
of which Mr. Bomanes was thinking, or why, after
implying and even saying over and over again that
instinct is inherited habit due to inherited memory,
should he turn sharply round on p. 297 and praise
Mr. Darwin for trying to snuff out “ the well-known
doctrine of inherited habit as advanced by Lamarck ? ”
The answer is not far to seek. It is because Mr.
Bomanes did not merely want to tell us all about
instinct, but wanted also, if I may use a homely

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

metaphor, to hunt with the hounds and run with
the hare at one and the same time.

I remember saying that if the late Mr. Darwin “ had
told us what the earlier evolutionists said, why they
said it, wherein he differed from them, and in what
way he proposed to set them straight, he would have
taken a course at once more agreeable with usual
practice, and more likely to remove misconception from
his own mind and from those of his readers.” * This I
have no doubt was one of the passages which made
Mr. Eomanes so angry with me. I can find no better
words to apply to Mr. Eomanes himself. He knows
perfectly well what others have written about the con¬
nection between heredity and memory, and he knows
no less well that so far as he is intelligible at all he is
taking the same view that they have taken. If he
had begun by saying what they had said, and had then
improved on it, I for one should have been only too
glad to be improved upon.

Mr. Eomanes has spoiled his book just because this
plain old-fashioned method of procedure was not good
enough for him. One-half the obscurity which makes
his meaning so hard to apprehend is due to exactly
the same cause as that which has ruined so much of
the late Mr. Darwin’s work — I mean to a desire to
appear to be differing altogether from others with
whom he knew himself after all to be in substantial
agreement. He adopts, but (probably quite uncon¬
sciously) in his anxiety to avoid appearing to adopt,
he obscures what he is adopting.

* Evolution, Old and New, pp. 357, 358.

ROMANES ’ MENTAL EVOLUTION , ETC. 59

Here, for example, is Mr. Romanes’ definition of
instinct : —

“ Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported
the element of consciousness. The term is therefore
a generic one, comprising all those faculties of mind
which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action,
antecedent to individual experience, without necessary
knowledge of the relation between means employed
and ends attained, but similarly performed under
similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all
the individuals of the same species.” *

If Mr. Romanes would have been content to build
frankly upon Professor Hering’s foundation, the sound¬
ness of which he has elsewhere abundantly admitted,
he might have said —

“ Instinct is knowledge or habit acquired in past
generations — the new generation remembering what
happened to it before it parted company with the old.
More briefly, Instinct is inherited memory.” Then he
might have added as a rider —

“ If a habit is acquired as a new one, during any
given lifetime, it is not an instinct. If having been
acquired in one lifetime it is transmitted to offspring,
it is an instinct in the offspring though it was not an
instinct in the parent. If the habit is transmitted
partially, it must be considered as partly instinctive
and partly acquired.”

This is easy ; it tells people how they may test
any action so as to know what they ought to call it ;
it leaves well alone by avoiding all such debatable

* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 159. Kegan Paul & Co., 1883.

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

matters as reflex action, consciousness, intelligence,
purpose, knowledge of purpose, &c. ; it both introduces
the feature of inheritance which is the one mainly
distinguishing instinctive from so-called intelligent

O O o

actions, and shows the manner in which these last
pass into the first, that is to say, by way of memory
and habitual repetition ; finally it points the fact that
the new generation is not to be looked upon as a new
thing, but (as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since said #)
as “ a branch or elongation ” of the one immediately
preceding it.

In Mr. Darwin’s case it is hardly possible to ex¬
aggerate the waste of time, money, and trouble that has
been caused by his not having been content to appear
as descending with modification like other people from
those who went before him. It will take years to get
the evolution theory out of the mess in which Mr.
Darwin has left it. He was heir to a discredited truth ;
he left behind him an accredited fallacy. Mr. Romanes,
if he is not stopped in time, will get the theory con¬
necting heredity and memory into just such another
muddle as Mr. Darwin has got evolution, for surely the
writer who can talk about “ heredity being able to work
up the faculty of homing into the instinct of migra¬
tion,” t or of “ the principle of (natural) selection com¬
bining with that of lapsing intelligence to the formation
of a joint result,” J is little likely to depart from the
usual methods of scientific procedure with advantage

* Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 484.

+ Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 297. Ivegan Paul & Co., 1883,
X Ibid. p. 201. Ivegan Paul & Co., 1S83.

ROMANES 5 MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC.

either to himself or any one else. Fortunately Mr.
Bomanes is not Mr. Darwin, and though he has cer¬
tainly got Mr. Darwin’s mantle, and got it very much
too, it will not on Mr. Bomanes’ shoulders hide a good
deal that people were not going to observe too closely
while Mr. Darwin wore it.

I ought to say that the late Mr. Darwin appears
himself eventually to have admitted the soundness
of the theory connecting heredity and memory. Mr.
Bomanes quotes a letter written by Mr. Darwin in
the last year of his life, in which he speaks of an
intelligent action gradually becoming “ instinctive ,
i.e ., memory transmitted from one generation to
another .” *

Briefly, the stages of Mr. Darwin’s opinion upon
the subject of hereditary memory are as follows : —

1859. “It would be the most serious error to sup¬
pose that the greater number of instincts have been
acquired by habit in one generation and transmitted
by inheritance to succeeding generations.” t And
this more especially applies to the instincts of many
ants.

1876. “It would be a serious error to suppose,” &c.,
as before.!

1881. “We should remember what a mass of in¬
herited knowledge is crowded into the minute brain of
a worker ant.” §

1881 or 1882. Speaking of a given habitual

* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 301. November 1SS3.

t Origin of Species, Ed. I. p. 209.

J Ibid., Ed. VI., 1S76, p. 206.

§ Formation of Vegetable Mould, &c., p. 9S.] .

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

action Mr. Darwin writes : “ It does not seem to me
at all incredible that this action [and why this more
than any other habitual action ?] should then become
instinctive : ” i.c., memory transmitted from one genera¬
tion to another *

And yet in 1839, or thereabouts, Mr. Darwin had
pretty nearly grasped the conception from which until
the last year or two of his life he so fatally strayed ;
for in his contribution to the volumes giving an
account of the voyages of the Adventure and Beagle ,
he wrote : “ Nature by making habit omnipotent and
its effects hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian for the
climate and productions of his country” (p. 237).

What is the secret of the long departure from the
simple common-sense view of the matter which he
took when he was a young mam ? I imagine simply
what I have referred to in the preceding chapter, —
over-anxiety to appear to be differing from his grand¬
father, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck.

I believe I may say that Mr. Darwin before he died
not only admitted the connection between memory and
heredity, but came also to see that he must readmit
that design in organism which he had so many years
opposed. For in the preface to Hermann Muller’s
“ Fertilisation of Flowers,” t which bears a date only a
very few weeks prior to Mr. Darwin’s death, I find
him saying : — “ Design in nature has for a long time
deeply interested many men, and though the subject

* Quoted by Mr. Romanes as written in the last year of Mr. Dar¬
win’s life. ,

t Macmillan, 1SS3.

ROMANES ’ MENTAL EVOLUTION , ETC. 63

must now be looked at from a somewhat different
point of view from what was formerly the case, it is
not on that account rendered less interesting.” This
is mused forth as a general gnome, and may mean
anything or nothing : the writer of the letterpress
under the hieroglyph in Old Moore’s Almanac could
not be more guarded ; but I think I know what it
does mean.

I cannot, of course, be sure ; Mr. Darwin did not
probably intend that I should ; but I assume with
confidence that whether there is design in organism or
no, there is at any rate design in this passage of Mr.
Darwin’s. This, we may be sure, is not a fortuitous
variation ; and, moreover, it is introduced for some
reason which made Mr. Darwin think it worth while
to go out of his way to introduce it. It has no fitness
in its connection with Hermann Muller’s book, for
what little Hermann Muller says about teleology at all
is to condemn it ; why, then, should Mr. Darwin muse
here of all places in the world about the interest
attaching to design in organism ? Neither has the
passage any connection with the rest of the preface.
There is not another word about design, and even here
Mr. Darwin seems mainly anxious to face both ways,
and pat design as it were on the head while not com¬
mitting himself to any proposition which could be
disputed.

The explanation is sufficiently obvious. Mr. Darwin
wanted to hedge. He saw that the design which his
works had been mainly instrumental in pitchforking
out of organisms no less manifestly designed than a

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

burglar’s jemmy is designed, had nevertheless found
its way back again, and that though, as I insisted in
‘‘Evolution, Old and New,” and “Unconscious Memory,”
it must now be placed within the organism instead
of outside it, as “ was formerly the case,” it was not

on that account any the less - design, as well as

interesting.

I should like to have seen Mr. Darwin say this
more explicitly. Indeed I should have liked to have
seen Mr. Darwin say anything at all about the mean¬
ing of which there could be no mistake, and without
contradicting himself elsewhere ; but this was not Mr.
Darwin’s manner.

In passing I will give another example of Mr.
Darwin’s manner when he did not quite dare even to
hedge. It is to be found fin the preface which he
wrote to Professor Weismann’s “ Studies in the Theory
of Descent,” published in 1882.

“ Several distinguished naturalists,” says Mr. Darwin,
“ maintain with much confidence that organic beings
tend, to vary and to rise in the scale, independently of
the conditions to which they and their progenitors
have been exposed ; whilst others maintain that all
variation is due to such exposure, though the manner
in which the environment acts is as yet quite unknown.
At the present time there is hardly any question in
biology of more importance than this of the nature
and causes of variabilitv, and the reader will find
in the present work an able discussion on the whole
subject, which will probably lead him to pause
before he admits the existence of an innate tendency

ROMANES ’ MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC. 65

to perfectibility ” — or towards being able to be per¬
fected.

I could find no able discussion upon the whole
subject in Professor WeismamTs book. There was a
little something here and there, but not much.

It may be expected that I should say something
here about Mr. Eomanes’ latest contribution to bio-
logy — I mean his theory of physiological selection,
of which the two first instalments have appeared in
Nature just as these pages are leaving my hands, and
many months since the foregoing, and most of the
following chapters were written. I admit to feeling a
certain sense of thankfulness that they did not appear
earlier; as it is, my book is too far advanced to be
capable of further embryonic change, and this must be
my excuse for saying less about Mr. Eomanes, theory
than I might perhaps otherwise do. I cordially,
however, agree with the Times , which says that “ Mr.
George Eomanes appears to be the biological investi¬
gator on whom the mantle of Mr. Darwin has most
conspicuously descended” (August 16, 1886). Mr.
Eomanes is just the person whom the late Mr. Darwin
would select to carry on his work, and Mr. Darwin
was just the kind of person towards whom Mr. Eomanes
would find himself instinctively attracted.

The Times continues — “ The position which Mr.
Eomanes takes up is the result of his perception
shared by many evolutionists, that the theory of

natural selection is not really a theory of the origin of

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

species. . . .” What, then, becomes1 of Mr. Darwin’s
most famous work, which was written expressly to
establish natural selection as the main means of
organic modification ? “ The new factor which Mr.

Eomanes suggests,” continues the Times , “ is that at
a certain stage of development of varieties in a state
of nature a change takes place in their reproduc¬
tive systems, rendering those which differ in some
particulars mutually infertile, and thus the formation
of new permanent species takes place without the
swamping effect of free intercrossing. . . . How his
theory can be properly termed one of selection he
fails to make clear. If correct, it is a law or principle
of operation rather than a process of selection. It
has been objected to Mr. Eomanes’ theory that it is the
re-statement of a fact. This objection is less important
than the lack of facts in support of the theory.” The
Times , however, implies it as its opinion that the
required facts will be forthcoming by and by, and that
when they have been found Mr. Eomanes’ suggestion
will constitute “ the most important addition to the
theory of evolution since the publication of the * Origin
of Species.’” Considering that the Times has just
implied the main thesis of the “ Origin of Species ” to
be one which does not stand examination, this is rather
a doubtful compliment.

Neither Mr. Eomanes nor the writer in the Times
appear to perceive that the results which may or may
not be supposed to ensue on choice depend upon what
it is that is supposed to be chosen from ; they do not
appear to see that though the expression natural

ROMANES 7 MENTAL EVOLUTION , ETC. 67

selection must be always more or less objectionable,
as too highly charged with metaphor for purposes of
science, there is nevertheless a natural selection which
is open to no other objection than this, and which,
when its metaphorical character is borne well in mind,
may be used without serious risk of error, whereas natu¬
ral selection from variations that are mainly fortuitous
is chimerical as well as metaphorical. Both writers
speak of natural selection as though there could not pos¬
sibly be any selection in the course of nature, or natural
survival, of any but accidental variations. Thus Mr.
Romanes says : * “ The swamping effect of free inter¬
crossing upon an individual variation constitutes per¬
haps the most formidable difficulty with which the
theory of natural selection is beset.” And the writer
of the article in the Times above referred to says :
“ In truth the theory of natural selection presents many
facts and results which increase rather than diminish
the difficulty of accounting for the existence of species.”
The assertion made in each case is true if the Charles-
Darwinian selection from fortuitous variations is in¬
tended, but it does not hold good if the selection is
supposed to be made from variations under which
there lies a general principle of wide and abiding
application. It is not likely that a man of Mr.
Romanes’ antecedents should not be perfectly awake
to considerations so obvious as the foregoing, and I
am afraid I am inclined to consider his whole surges-

tion as only an attempt upon the part of the wearer

* Nature, August 5, 1S86.

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

of Mr Darwin’s mantle to carry on Mr. Darwin’s work
in Mr. Darwin’s spirit.

I have seen Professor Hering’s theory adopted
recently more unreservedly by Dr. Creighton in his
“ Illustrations of Unconscious Memory in Disease.” *
Dr. Creighton avowedly bases his system on Professor
Hering’s address, and endorses it ; it is with much
pleasure that I have seen him lend the weight of his
authority to the theory that each cell and organ has an
individual memory. In “ Life and Habit ” I expressed
a hope that the opinions it upheld would be found use¬
ful by medical men, and am therefore the more glad
to see that this has proved to be the case. I may
perhaps be pardoned if I quote the passage in “ Life
and Habit ” to which I am referring. It runs : —

“ Mutatis mutandis , the above would seem to hold
as truly about medicine as about politics. We cannot
reason with our cells, for they know so much more ”
(of course I mean “ about their own business ”) “ than
we do, that they cannot understand us; — but though
we cannot reason with them, we can find out what
they have been most accustomed to, and what, therefore,
they are most likely to expect ; we can see that they
get this as far as it is in our power to give it them,
and may then generally leave the rest to them, only
bearing in mind that they will rebel equally against
too sudden a change of treatment and no change at

aH”(p. 305).

* London, H. K. Lewis, 1SS6.

ROMANES 5 MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC. 69

Dr. Creighton insists chiefly on the importance of
change, which — though I did not notice his saying
so — he would doubtless see as a mode of cross¬
fertilisation, fraught in all respects with the same
advantages as this, and requiring the same precautions
against abuse; he would not, however, I am sure,
deny that there could be no fertility of good result
if too wide a cross were attempted, so that I may
claim the weight of his authority as supporting both
the theory of an unconscious memory in general, and
the particular application of it to medicine which I
had ventured to suggest.

“ Has the word ‘ memory,’ ” he asks, “ a real applica¬
tion to unconscious organic phenomena, or do we use it
outside its ancient limits only in a figure of speech ? ”

“ If I had thought,” he continues later, “ that
unconscious memory was no more than a metaphor,
and the detailed application of it to these various
forms of disease merely allegorical, I should still
have judged it not unprofitable to represent a some¬
what hackneyed class of maladies in the light of a
parable. None of our faculties is more familiar to us
in its workings than the memory, and there is hardly
any force or power in nature which every one knows
so well as the force of habit. To say that a neurotic
subject is like a person with a retentive memory, or
that a diathesis gradually acquired is like an over¬
mastering habit, is at all events to make comparisons
with things that we all understand.

“ For reasons given chiefly in the first chapter, I
conclude that retentiveness, with reproduction, is a

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

single undivided faculty throughout the whole of our
life, whether mental or bodily, conscious or uncon¬
scious ; and I claim the description of a certain class
of maladies according to the phraseology of memory
and habit as a real description and not a figurative.”
(P- 2.)

As a natural consequence of the foregoing he
regards “ alterative action ” as “ habit-breaking action.”

As regards the organism’s being guided throughout
its development to maturity by an unconscious memory,
Dr. Creighton says that “ Professor Bain calls repro¬
duction the acme of organic complication.” “ I should
prefer to say,” he adds, “ the acme of organic impli¬
cation ; for the reason that the sperm and germ
elements are perfectly simple, having nothing in their
form or structure to show for the marvellous poten¬
tialities within them.

“ I now come to the application of these consi¬
derations to the doctrine of unconscious memory. If
generation is the acme of organic implicitness, what
is its correlative in nature, what is the acme of
organic explicitness ? Obviously the fine flower of
consciousness. Generation is implicit memory, con¬
sciousness is explicit memory ; generation is potential
memory, consciousness is actual memory.”

I am not sure that I understand the preceding
paragraph as clearly as I should wish, but having
quoted enough to perhaps induce the reader to turn
to Dr. Creighton’s book, I will proceed to the subject
indicated in my title.

( 7 1 )

CHAPTER V.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE.

Of the two points referred to in the opening sentence
of this book — I mean the connection between heredity
and memory, and the reintroduction of design into
organic modification — the second is both the more
important and the one which stands most in need of
support. The substantial identity between heredity
and memory is becoming generally admitted ; as
regards my second point, however, I cannot flatter
myself that I have made much way against the for¬
midable array of writers on the neo-Darwinian side ; I
shall therefore devote the rest of my book as far as
possible to this subject only. Natural selection
(meaning by these words the preservation in the
ordinary course of nature of favourable variations that
are supposed to be mainly matters of pure good luck
and in no way arising out of function) has been, to
use an Americanism than which I can find nothing
apter, the biggest biological boom of the last quarter
of a century ; it is not, therefore, to be wondered at
that Professor Ray Lankester, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Grant
Allen, and others, should show some impatience at

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

seeing its value as prime means of modification called
in question. Within the last few months, indeed,
Mr. Grant Allen * and Professor Ray Lankester t in
England, and Dr. Ernst Krause J in Germany, have
spoken and written warmly in support of the theory
of natural selection, and in opposition to the view
taken by myself; if they are not to be left in
possession of the field the sooner they are met the
better.

Stripped of detail the point at issue is this ; —
whether luck or cunning is the fitter to be insisted
on as the main means of organic development. Eras¬
mus Darwin and Lamarck answered this question in
favour of cunning. They settled it in favour of in¬
telligent perception of the situation — within, of course,
ever narrower and narrower limits as organism retreats
farther backwards from ourselves — and persistent effort
to turn it to account. They made this the soul of all
development whether of mind or body.

And they made it, like all other souls, liable to
aberration both for better and worse. They held that
some organisms show more ready wit and savoir faire
than others ; that some give more proofs of genius
and have more frequent happy thoughts than others,
and that some have even gone through waters of
misery which they have used as wells. The sheet
anchor both of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck is in
good sense and thrift ; still they are aware that money

* Charles Darwin. Longmans, 1885.

+ Lectures at the London Institution, Feb. 1886.

+ Charles Darwin. Leipsic, 1885.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 73

has been sometime made by “ striking oil,” and ere
now been transmitted to descendants in spite of the
haphazard way in which it was originally acquired.
No speculation, no commerce; “nothing venture,
nothing have,” is as true for the development of
organic wealth as for that of any other kind, and
neither Erasmus Darwin nor Lamarck hesitated about
admitting that highly picturesque and romantic inci¬
dents of developmental venture do from time to time
occur in the race-histories even of the dullest and
most dead-level organisms under the name of “ sports
but they would hold that even these occur most often
and most happily to those that have persevered in
well-doing for some generations. Unto the organism
that hath is given, and from the organism that hath
not is taken away ; so that even “ sports ” prove to
be only a little off thrift, which still remains the
sheet anchor of the early evolutionists. They believe,
in fact, that more organic wealth has been made by
saving than in any other way. The race is not in the
long run to the phenomenally swift nor the battle to
the phenomenally strong, but to the good average all¬
round organism that is alike shy of Eadical crotchets
and old world obstructiveness. “Fcstina” but “fcstina
lente ” — perhaps as involving so completely the contra¬
diction in terms which must underlie all modification
— is the motto they would assign to organism, and
“ Chi va piano va lontano ,” they hold to be a maxim
as old, if not as the hills (and they have a hankering
even after these), at any rate as the amoeba.

To repeat in other words. All enduring forms

LUCK , Oi? CUNNING?

establish a modus vivendi with Jffieir surroundings.
They can do this because both they and the surround¬
ings are plastic within certain undefined but somewhat
narrow limits. They are plastic because they can to
some extent change their habits, and changed habit, if
persisted in, involves corresponding change, however
slight, in the organs employed ; but their plasticity
depends in great measure upon their failure to per¬
ceive that they are moulding themselves. If a change
is so great that they are seriously incommoded by its
novelty, they are not likely to acquiesce in it kindly
enough to grow to it, but they will make no diffi¬
culty about the miracle involved in accommodating
themselves to a difference of only two or three per
cent.'*

As long as no change exceeds this percentage, and
as long, also, as fresh change does not supervene till
the preceding one is well established, there seems no
limit to the amount of modification which may be
accumulated in the course of generations — provided,
of course, always, that the modification continues to be
in conformity with the instinctive habits and physical
development of the organism in their collective capa¬
city. Where the change is too great, or where an
organ has been modified cumulatively in some one
direction, until it has reached a development too
seriously out of harmony with the habits of the
organism taken collectively, then the organism holds
itself excused from further effort, throws up the whole

* See Professor Hering’s “ Zur Lehre von der Beziehung zwischen
Leib und Seele. Mittheilung iiber Fechner's psychophysisches Gesetz.”

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 75

concern, and takes refuge in the liquidation and recon¬
struction of death. It is only on the relinquishing of
further effort that this death ensues ; as long as effort
endures, organisms go on from change to change,
altering and being altered — that is to say, either killing
themselves piecemeal in deference to the surroundings
or killing the surroundings piecemeal to suit them¬
selves. There is a ceaseless higgling and haggling, or
rather a life-and-death struggle between these two
things as long as life lasts, and one or other or both
have in no small part to re-enter into the womb from
whence they came and be born again in some form
which shall give greater satisfaction.

All change is pro tanto death or pro tanto birth.
Change is the common substratum which underlies
both life and death ; life and death are not two
distinct things absolutely antagonistic to one another ;
in the highest life there is still much death, and in
the most complete death there is still not a little life.
“ Let vie,” says Claude Bernard,* “ e’est la mort ; ” he
might have added, and perhaps did, “ et la mort ce
nest que la vie transformee.” Life and death are the
extreme modes of something wdiich is partly both and
wholly neither ; this something is common, ordinary
change ; solve any change and the mystery of life and
death will be revealed ; show why and how anything
becomes ever anything other in any respect than what
it is at any given moment, and there will be little
secret left in any other change. One is not in its

* Quoted by M. Vianna De Lima in his Expose Sommaire des Theories
Transformistes de Lamarck, Darwin, et HcecTcel, Paris, 1886, p. 23.

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

ultimate essence more miraculous than another ; it
may be more striking — a greater congeries, of shocks, it
may be more credible or more incredible, but not more
miraculous ; all change is qud us absolutely incompre¬
hensible and miraculous ; the smallest change baffles
the greatest intellect if its essence, as apart from its
phenomena, be inquired into.

But however this may be, all organic change is
either a growth or a dissolution, or a combination of
the two. Growth is the coming together of elements
with quasi similar characteristics. I understand it is
believed to be the coming together of matter in certain
states of motion with other matter in states so nearly
similar that the rhythms of the one coalesce with
and hence reinforce the rhythms pre-existing in the
other — making, rather than marring and undoing them.
Life and growth are an attuning, death and decay are
an untuning; both involve a succession of greater or
smaller attunings and untunings ; organic life is “ the
diapason closing full in man ; ” it is the fulness of a
tone that varies in pitch, quality, and in the harmonics
to which it gives rise ; it ranges through every degree
of complexity from the endless combinations of life-
and-death within life-and-death which we find in the
mammalia, to the comparative simplicity of the amoeba.
Death, again, like life, ranges through every degree of
complexity. All pleasant changes are recreative ; they
are pro tanto births ; all unpleasant changes are wear¬
ing, and, as such, 'pro tanto deaths, but we can no more
exhaust either wholly of the other, than we can exhaust
all the air out of a receiver; pleasure and pain lurk

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 77

within one another, as life in death, and death in life,
or as rest and unrest in one another.

There is no greater mystery in life than in death.
We talk as though the riddle of life only need engage
us ; this is not so ; death is just as great a miracle as
life ; the one is two and two making five, the other is
five splitting into two and two. Solve either, and w7e
have solved the other ; they should be studied not apart,
for they are never parted, but together, and they will
tell more tales of one another than either will tell about
itself. If there is one thing which advancing knowledge
makes clearer than another, it is that death is swal¬
lowed up in life, and life in death ; so that if the last
enemy that shall be subdued is death, then indeed is
our salvation nearer than what we thought, for in
strictness there is neither life nor death, nor thought
nor thing, except as figures of speech, and as the
approximations which strike us for the time as most
convenient. There is neither perfect life nor perfect
death, but a being ever with the Lord only, in the
eternal (popa , or going to and fro and heat and fray of
the universe. When we were young we thought the
one certain thing was that we should one day come to
die ; now we know the one certain thing to be that we
shall never wholly do so. “Non omnis moriar ” says
Horace, and “ I die daily,” says St. Paul, as though
a life beyond the grave, and a death on this side of it,
were each some strange thing which happened to them
alone of all men ; but who dies absolutely once for
all, and for ever at the hour that is commonly called
that of death, and who does not die daily and hourly ?

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

Does any man in continuing to live from day to day
or moment to moment, do more than continue in a
changed body, with changed feelings, ideas, and aims,
so that he lives from moment to moment only in virtue
of a simultaneous dying from moment to moment also ?
Does any man in dying do more than, on a larger and
more complete scale, what he has been doing on a small
one, as the most essential factor of his life, from the day
that he became “ he ” at all ? When the note of life
is struck the harmonics of death are sounded, and so,
again, to strike death is to arouse the infinite har¬
monics of life that rise forthwith as incense curling
upwards from a censer. If in the midst of life we
are in death, so also in the midst of death we are in
life, and whether we live or whether we die, whether
we like it and know anything about it or no, still
we do it to the Lord — living always, dying always,
and in the Lord always, the unjust and the just alike,
for God is no respecter of persons.

Consciousness and change, so far as we can watch
them, are as functionally interdependent as mind and
matter, or condition and substance, are — for the con¬
dition of every substance may be considered as the
expression and outcome of its mind. Where there is
consciousness there is change ; where there is no change
there is no consciousness ; may we not suspect that
there is no change without a pro tanto consciousness
however simple and unspecialised ? Change and
motion are one, so that we have substance, feeling,
change (or motion), as the ultimate three-in-one of our
thoughts, and may suspect all change, and all feeling,

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE . 79

attendant or consequent, however limited, to he the
interaction of those states which for want of better
terms we call mind and matter. Action may he
regarded as a kind of middle term between mind and
matter ; it is the throe of thought and thing, the
quivering clash and union of body and soul ; common¬
place enough in practice ; miraculous, as violating
every canon on which thought and reason are founded,
if we theorise about it, put it under the microscope,
and vivisect it. It is here, if anywhere, that body
or substance is guilty of the contradiction in terms of
combining with that which is without material sub-
stance and cannot, therefore, be conceived by us as
passing in and out with matter, till the two become a
body ensouled and a soul embodied.

All body is more or less ensouled. As it gets
farther and farther from ourselves, indeed, we sym¬
pathise less with it ; nothing, we say to ourselves, can
have intelligence unless we understand all about it
— as though intelligence in all except ourselves meant
the power of being understood rather than of under¬
standing. We are intelligent, and no intelligence, so
different from our own as to baffle our powers of
comprehension deserves to be called intelligence at
all. The more a thing resembles ourselves, the more
it thinks as we do — and thus by implication tells us
that wre are right, the more intelligent we think it ; and
the less it thinks as we do, the greater fool it must
be ; if a substance does not succeed in making it clear
that it understands our business, we conclude that
it cannot have any business of its own, much less

8 o

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

understand it, or indeed understand anything at all.
But letting this pass, so far as we are concerned,
X'Ori /j,arwv kgchtojv [mztoov avdiuvrog • we are body ensouled,
and soul embodied, ourselves, nor is it possible for us
to think seriously of anything so unlike ourselves as
to consist either of soul without body, or body without
soul. Unmattered condition, therefore, is as incon¬
ceivable by us as unconditioned matter; and we must
hold that all body with which AVe can be conceivably
concerned is more or less ensouled, and all soul, in like
manner, more or less embodied. Strike either body
or soul — that is to say, effect either a physical or a
mental change, and the harmonics of the other sound.
So long as body is minded in a certain way — so long,
that is to say, as it feels, knows, remembers, concludes,
and forecasts one set of things — it will be in one form ;
if it assumes a new one, otherwise than by external
violence, no matter how slight the change may he, it
is only through having changed its mind, through
having forgotten and died to some trains of thought,
and having been correspondingly horn anew by the
adoption of new ones. What it will adopt depends upon
which of the various courses open to it it considers
most to its advantage.

What it will think to its advantage depends mainly
on the past habits of its race. Its past and now in¬
visible lives will influence its desires more powerfully
than anything it may itself be able to add to the sum
of its likes and dislikes ; nevertheless, over and above
preconceived opinion and the habits to which all are
slaves, there is a small salary, oiyas it were, agency

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 81

commission, which each may have for himself, and
spend according to his fancy ; from this, indeed, income-
tax must be deducted ; still there remains a little
margin of individual taste, and here, high up on this
narrow, inaccessible ledge of our souls, from year to
year a breed of not unprolific variations build where
reason cannot reach them to despoil them; for dc
gustibus non est disjputandum.

Here we are as far as we can go. Fancy, which
sometimes sways so much and is swayed by so little,
and which sometimes, again, is so hard to sway, and
moves so little when it is swayed ; whose ways have
a method of their own, but are not as our ways —
fancy, lies on the extreme borderland of the realm
within which the writs of our thoughts run, and extends
into that unseen world wherein they have no jurisdic¬
tion. Fancy is as the mist upon the horizon which
blends earth and sky ; where, however, it approaches
nearest to the earth and can be reckoned with, it is
seen as melting into desire, and this as giving birth
to design and effort. As the nett result and outcome
of these last, living forms grow gradually but persis¬
tently into physical conformity with their own inten¬
tions, and become outward and visible signs of the
inward and spiritual faiths, or wants of faith, that
have been most within them. They thus very gradu¬
ally, but none the less effectually, design themselves.

In effect, therefore, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck
introduce uniformity into the moral and spiritual
worlds as it was already beginning to be introduced

into the physical. According to both these writers

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

development has ever been a matter of the same
energy, effort, good sense, and perseverance, as tend
to advancement of life now among ourselves. In
essence it is neither more nor less than this, as the
rain-drop which denuded an ancient formation is of
the same kind as that which is denuding a modern
one, though its effect may vary in geometrical ratio
with the effect it has produced already. As we are
extending reason to the lower animals, so we must
extend a system of moral government by rewmrds and
punishments no less surely ; and if we admit that to
some considerable extent man is man, and master of
his fate, we should admit also that all organic forms
which are saved at all have been in proportionate
degree masters of their fate too, and have worked out,
not only their own salvation, hut their salvation accord¬
ing, in no small measure, to their own goodwill and
pleasure, at times with a light heart, and at times
in fear and trembling. I do not say that Erasmus
Darwin and Lamarck saw all the foregoing as clearly
as it is easy to see it now ; what I have said, however,
is only the natural development of their system.

( §3 )

CHAPTER YI.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE ( continued ).

So much for the older view ; and now for the more
modern opinion. According to Messrs. Darwin and
Wallace, and ostensibly, I am afraid I should add, a
great majority of our most prominent biologists, the
view taken by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck is not a'
sound one. Some organisms, indeed, are so admirably
adapted to their surroundings, and some organs dis¬
charge their functions with so much appearance of
provision, that we are apt to think they must owe
their development to sense of need and consequent
contrivance, but this opinion is fantastic ; the appear¬
ance of design is delusive; what we are tempted to see
as an accumulated outcome of desire and cunning, we
should regard as mainly an accumulated outcome of
good luck.

Let us take the eye as a somewhat crucial example.
It is a seeing-machine, or thing to see with. So is a
telescope ; the telescope in its highest development is
a secular accumulation of cunning, sometimes small,
sometimes great ; sometimes applied to this detail of
the instrument, and sometimes to that. It is an

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

admirable example of design ; nevertheless, as I said in
“ Evolution Old and New,” he who made the first rude
telescope had probably no idea of any more perfect
form of the instrument than the one he had himself
invented. Indeed, if he had, he would have carried
his idea out in practice. He would have been unable
to conceive such an instrument as Lord Eosse’s ; the
design, therefore, at present evidenced by the telescope
was not design all on the part of one and the same
person. Nor yet was it unmixed with chance ; many
a detail has been doubtless due to an accident or coin¬
cidence which was forthwith seized and made the best of.
Luck there always has been and always will be, until all
brains are opened, and all connections made known, but
luck turned to account becomes design; there is, indeed,
if things are driven home, little other design than this.
The telescope, therefore, is an instrument designed in
all its parts for the purpose of seeing, and, take it
all round, designed with singular skill.

Looking at the eye, we are at first tempted to think
that it must be the telescope over again, only more
so ; we are tempted to see it as something which has
grown up little by little from small beginnings, as the
result of effort well applied and handed down from
generation to generation, till, in the vastly greater time
during which the eye has been developing as compared
with the telescope, a vastly more astonishing result
has been arrived at. We may indeed be tempted to
think this, but, according to Mr. Darwin, we should be
wrong. Design had a great deal to do with the tele¬
scope, but it had nothing or hardly anything whatever

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 85

to do with the eye. The telescope owes its develop¬
ment to cunning, the eye to luck, which, it would seem,
is so far more cunning than cunning that one does
not quite understand why there should be any cunning
at all. The main means of developing the eye was,

1 according to Mr. Darwin, not use as varying circum¬
stances might direct with consequent slow increase of
power and an occasional happy flight of genius, but
natural selection. Natural selection, according to him,
though not the sole, is still the most important means
of its development and modification.* What, then, is
natural selection ?

Mr. Darwin has told us this on the title-page of
the “ Origin of Species.” He there defines it as “ The
Preservation of Favoured Paces;” “Favoured” is
“ Fortunate,” and “ Fortunate ” “ Lucky ; ” it is plain,
therefore, that with Mr. Darwin natural selection
comes to “ The Preservation of Lucky Paces,” and
that he regarded luck as the most important feature
in connection with the development even of so
apparently purposive an organ as the eye, and as the
one, therefore, on which it was most proper to insist.
And what is luck but absence of intention or design ?
What, then, can Mr. Darwin’s title-page amount to
when written out plainly, but to an assertion that the
main means of modification has been the preservation
of races whose variations have been unintentional,
that is to say, not connected with effort or intention,
devoid of mind or meaning, fortuitous, spontaneous,
accidental, or whatever kindred word is least disagree-

* Origin of Species, ed. I, p. 6 ; see also p. 43.

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

able to the reader ? It is impossible to conceive any
more complete denial of mind as having had anything
to do with organic development, than is involved in
the title-page of the “ Origin of Species ” when its
doubtless carefully considered words are studied — nor,
let me add, is it possible to conceive a title-page more
likely to make the reader’s attention rest much on the
main doctrine of evolution, and little, to use the words
now most in vogue concerning it, on Mr. Darwin’s
own “ distinctive feature.”

It should be remembered that the full title of the
“ Origin of Species ” is, “ On the origin of species by
means of natural selection, or the preservation of
favoured races in the struggle for life.” The significance
of the expansion of the title escaped the greater number
of Mr. Darwin’s readers. Perhaps it ought not to have
done so, but we certainly failed to catch it. The very
vTords themselves escaped us — and yet there they were
all the time if we had only chosen to look. We
thought the book was called “ On the Origin of
Species,” and so it was on the outside ; so it was also
on the inside fly-leaf ; so it was on the title-page itself
as long as the most prominent type was used ; the
expanded title was only given once, and then in
smaller type ; so the three big “ Origins of Species ”
carried us with them to the exclusion of the rest.

The short and working title, “ On the Origin of
Species,” in effect claims descent with modification
generally ; the expanded and technically true title
only claims the discovery that luck is the main means
of organic modification, and this is a very different

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 87

matter. The book ought to have been entitled, “ On
Natural Selection, or the preservation of favoured
races in the struggle for life, as the main means of
the origin of species ; ” this should have been the
expanded title, and the short title should have been
“ On Natural Selection.” The title would not then have
involved an important difference between its working
and its technical forms, and it would have better ful¬
filled the object of a title, which is, of course, to give,
as far as may be, the essence of a book in a nutshell.
We learn on the authority of Mr. Darwin himself*
that the “ Origin of Species ” was originally intended to
bear the title “ Natural Selection ; ” nor is it easy to
see why the change should have been made if an
accurate expression of the contents of the book was
the only thing which Mr. Darwin was considering.
It is curious that, writing the later chapters of “ Life
and Habit ” in great haste, I should have accidentally
referred to the “ Origin of Species ” as “ Natural Selec¬
tion ; ” it seems hard to believe that there was no
intention in my thus unconsciously reverting to Mr.
Darwin’s own original title, but there certainly was
none, and I did not then know what the original title
had been.

If we had scrutinised Mr. Darwin’s title-page as
closely as we should certainly scrutinise anything
written by Mr. Darwin now, we should have seen that
the title did not technically claim the theory of

* “ I think it can be shown that there is such a power at work in
‘ Natural Selection ’ (the title of my book).” — “ Proceedings of the
Linnean Society for 1858,” vol. iii. p. 51.

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

descent ; practically, however, it so turned out that
we unhesitatingly gave that theory to the author,
being, as I have said, carried away by the three large
“ Origins of Species ” (which we understood as much
the same thing as descent with modification), and
finding, as I shall show in a later chapter, that descent
was ubiquitously claimed throughout the work, either
expressly or by implication, as Mr. Darwin’s theory.
It is not easy to see how any one with ordinary
instincts could hesitate to believe that Mr. Darwin
was entitled to claim what he claimed with so much
insistance. If “ ars est celare artem ” Mr. Darwin must
he allowed to have been a consummate artist, for it
took us years to understand the ins and outs of what
had been done.

I may say in passing that we never see the “ Origin
of Species ” spoken of as “ On the Origin of Species,
&c.,” or as “ The Origin of Species, &c.” (the word
“ on ” being dropped in the latest editions). The
distinctive feature of the book lies, according to its
admirers, in the “ &c,” but they never give it. To
avoid pedantry I shall continue to speak of the
“ Origin of Species.”

At any rate it will be admitted that Mr. Darwin
did not make his title-page express his meaning so
clearly that his readers could readily catch the point
of difference between himself and his grandfather and
Lamarck ; nevertheless the point just touched upon
involves the only essential difference between the
systems of Mr. Charles Darwin and those of his three
most important predecessors. All four writers agree

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 89

that animals and plants descend with modification ;
all agree that the fittest alone survive ; all agree about
the important consequences of the geometrical ratio of
increase ; Mr. Charles Darwin has said more about
these last two points than his predecessors did, but all
three were alike cognisant of the facts and attached
the same importance to them, and would have been
astonished at its being supposed possible that they
disputed them. The fittest alone survive ; yes — but
the fittest from among what ? Here comes the point
of divergence ; the fittest from among organisms whose
variations arise mainly through use and disuse ? In
other words, from variations that are mainly functional ?
Or from among organisms whose variations are in the
main matters of luck ? From variations into which a
moral and intellectual system of payment according to
results has largely entered ? Or from variations which
have been thrown for with dice ? From variations
among which, though cards tell, yet play tells as much
or more ? Or from those in which cards are every¬
thing and play goes for so little as to be not worth
taking into account ? Is “ the survival of the fittest ”
to be taken as meaning “the survival of the luckiest”
or “ the survival of those who know best how to turn
fortune to account ” ? Is luck the only element of
fitness, or is not cunning even more indispensable ?

Mr. Darwin has a habit, borrowed, perhaps, mutatis
mutandis , from the framers of our collects, of every
now and then adding the words “ through natural
selection,” as though this squared everything, and
descent with modification thus became his theory at

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

once. This is not the case. Button, Erasmus Darwin,
and Lamarck believed in natural selection to the full
as much as any follower of Mr. Charles Darwin can
do. They did not use the actual words, but the idea
underlying them is the essence of their system. Mr.
Patrick Matthew epitomised their doctrine more tersely,
perhaps, than was done by any other of the pre-Charles-
Darwinian evolutionists, in the following passage which
appeared in 1831, and which I have already quoted
in “Evolution, Old and New” (pp. 320, 323). The
passage runs : —

“ The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organised
life may, in part, be traced to the extreme fecundity
of nature, who, as before stated, has in all the varieties
of her offspring a prolific power much beyond (in
many cases a thousandfold) what is necessary to fill
up the vacancies caused by senile decay. As the
field of existence is limited and preoccupied, it is only
the hardier, more robust, better suited to circum¬
stance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to
maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which
they have superior adaptation and greater power of
occupancy than any other kind ; the weaker and less
circumstance-suited being prematurely destroyed. This
principle is in constant action ; it regulates the colour,
the figure, the capacities, and instincts ; those indi¬
viduals in each species whose colour and covering are
best suited to concealment or protection from enemies,
or defence from inclemencies or vicissitudes of climate,
whose figure is best accommodated to health, strength,
defence, and support; whose capacities and instincts

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 91

can best regulate the physical energies to self- advan¬
tage according to circumstances — in such immense
waste of primary and youthful life those only come
toward to maturity from the strict ordeal by which
nature tests their adaptation to her standard of perfection
and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction.” # A
little lower down Mr. Matthew speaks of animals under
domestication “not having undergone selection by the
law of nature, of which we have spoken, and hence
being unable to maintain their ground without culture
and protection.”

The distinction between Darwinism and Neo-
Darwinism is generally believed to lie in the adoption
of a theory of natural selection by the younger
Darwin and its non-adoption by the elder. This is
true in so far as that the elder Darwin does not use
the words “ natural selection,” while the younger does,
but it is not true otherwise. Both writers agree that
offspring tends to inherit modifications that have been
effected from whatever cause, in parents ; both hold
that the best adapted to their surroundings live
longest and leave most offspring; both, therefore, hold
that favourable modifications will tend to be preserved
and intensified in the course of many generations,
and that this leads to divergence of type ; but these
opinions involve a theory of natural selection or
quasi-selection, whether the words “ natural selection ”
are used or not; indeed it is impossible to include
wild species in any theory of descent with modifi-

* On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, 1831, pp. 3S4, 385. See
also Evolution Old and New, pp. 320, 321.

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

cation without implying a quasi-selective power on
the part of nature ; but even with Mr. Charles
Darwin the power is only quasi-selective ; there is
no conscious choice, and hence there is nothing that
can in strictness be called selection.

It is indeed true that the younger Darwin gave the
words “ natural selection ” the importance which of late
years they have assumed ; he probably adopted them
unconsciously from the passage of Mr. Matthew’s quoted
above, but he ultimately said/" “ In the literal sense of
the word (sic) no doubt natural selection is a false term,”
as personifying a fact, making it exercise the con¬
scious choice without which there can be no selection,
and generally crediting it with the discharge of func¬
tions which can only be ascribed legitimately to living
and reasoning beings. Granted, however, that while
Mr. Charles Darwin adopted the expression natural
selection and admitted it to be a bad one, his grand¬
father did not use it at all ; still Mr. Darwin did
not mean the natural selection which Mr. Matthew
and those whose opinions he was epitomising meant.
Mr. Darwin meant the selection to be made from
variations into which purpose enters to only a small
extent comparatively. The difference, therefore, be¬
tween the older evolutionists and their successor does
not lie in the acceptance by the more recent writer
of a quasi-selective power in nature which his pre¬
decessors denied, but in the background — hidden be¬
hind the words natural selection, which have served
to cloak it — in the views which the old and the new

* Origin of Species, p. 49 ed. 6.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 93

writers severally took of the variations from among
which they are alike agreed that a selection or quasi¬
selection is made.

It now appears that there is not one natural selec¬
tion, and one survival of the fittest only, but two
natural selections, and two survivals of the fittest, the
one of which may he objected to as an expression more
fit for religious and general literature than for science,
but may still be admitted as sound in intention, while
the other, inasmuch as it supposes accident to be the
main purveyor of variations, has no correspondence
with the actual course of things ; for if the variations

are matters of chance or hazard unconnected with anv

principle of constant application, they will not occur
steadily enough, throughout a sufficient number of
successive generations, nor to a sufficient number of
individuals for many generations- together at the same
time and place, to admit of the fixing and permanency
of modification at all. The one theorv of natural
selection, therefore, may, and indeed will, explain the
facts that surround us, whereas the other will not.
Mr. Charles Darwin’s contribution to the theory of
evolution was not, as is commonly supposed, “ natural
selection,” but the hypothesis that natural selection
from variations that are in the main fortuitous could
accumulate and result in specific and generic dif¬
ferences.

In the foregoing paragraph I have given the point
of difference between Mr. Charles Darwin and his pre¬
decessors. Why, I wonder, have neither he nor any
of his exponents put this difference before us in such

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

plain words that we should readily apprehend it ?
Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck were understood by
all who wished to understand them ; why is it that
the misunderstanding of Mr. Darwin’s “ distinctive
feature ” should have been so long and obstinate ?
Why is it that, no matter how much writers like Mr.
Grant Allen and Professor Pay Lankester may say
about “ Mr. Darwin’s master-key,” nor how many
more like hyperboles they brandish, they never put
a succinct resume of Mr. Darwin’s theory side by
side with a similar rtsmnt of his grandfather’s and
Lamarck’s ? Neither Mr. Darwin himself, nor any of
those to whose advocacy his reputation is mainly due,
have done this. Professor Huxley is the man of all
others who foisted Mr. Darwin most upon us, but in
his famous lecture on the coming of age of the
“ Origin of Species ” he did not explain to his hearers
wherein the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution dif¬
fered from the old ; and why not ? Surely, because
no sooner is this made clear than we perceive that
the idea underlying the old evolutionists is more in
accord with instinctive feelings that we have cherished
too long to be able now to disregard them than the
central idea which underlies the “ Origin of Species.”

What should we think of one who maintained that
the steam-engine and telescope were not developed
mainly through design and effort (letting the indis¬
putably existing element of luck go without saying),
but to the fact that if any telescope or steam-engine
“ happened to be made ever such a little more con¬
veniently for man’s purposes than another,” &c., &c. ?

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 95

Let us suppose a notorious burglar found in posses¬
sion of a jemmy ; it is admitted on all bands that he
will use it as soon as he gets a chance ; there is no
doubt about this ; how perverted should we not con¬
sider the ingenuity of one who tried to persuade us
we were wrong in thinking that the burglar com-
passed the possession of the jemmy by means involv¬
ing ideas, however vague in the first instance, of
applying it to its subsequent function.

If any one could be found so blind to obvious
inferences as to accept natural selection, “ or the pre¬
servation of favoured machines,” as the main means
of mechanical modification, we might suppose him to
argue much as follows : — “ I can quite understand,”
he would exclaim, “ how any one who reflects upon
the originally simple form of the earliest jemmies, and
observes the developments they have since attained in
the hands of our most accomplished housebreakers,
might at first be tempted to believe that the present
form of the instrument has been arrived at by long-
continued improvement in the hands of an almost
infinite succession of thieves ; but may not this infer¬
ence be somewhat too hastily drawn ? Have we any
right to assume that burglars work by means analo¬
gous to those employed by other people ? If any
thief happened to pick up any crowbar which hap¬
pened to be ever such a little better suited to his
purpose than the one he had been in the habit of
using hitherto, he would at once seize and carefully
preserve it. If it got worn out or broken he would
begin , searching fora crowbar as like as possible to

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

the one that he had lost ; and when, with advancing
skill, and in default of being able to find the exact
thing he wanted, he took at length to making a jemmy
for himself, he would imitate the latest and most per¬
fect adaptation, which would thus be most likely to
be preserved in the struggle of competitive forms.
Let this process go on for countless generations,
among countless burglars of all nations, and may we
not suppose that a jemmy would be in time arrived
at, as superior to any that could have been designed
as the effect of the Niagara Falls is superior to the
puny efforts of the landscape gardener ? ”

For the moment I will pass over the obvious retort
that there is no sufficient parallelism between bodily
organs and mechanical inventions to make a denial of
design in the one involve in equity a denial of it nr
the other also, and that therefore the preceding para¬
graph has no force. A man is not bound to deny
design in machines wherein it can be clearly seen
because he denies it in living organs where at best it
is a matter of inference. This retort is plausible, but
in the course of the two next following chapters but
one it will be shown to be without force ; for the
moment, however, beyond thus calling attention to it,
I must pass it by.

I do not mean to say that Mr. Darwin ever wrote
anything which made the futility of his contention as
apparent as it is made by what I have above put into
the mouth of his supposed follower. Mr. Darwin was
the Gladstone of biology, and so old a scientific hand
was not going to make things unnecessarily clear

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 97

unless it suited his convenience. Then, indeed, he
was like the man in “ The Hunting of the Snark,”
who said, “ I told you once, I told you twice, what
I tell you three times is true.” That what I have
supposed said, however, above about the jemmy is
no exaggeration of Mr. Darwin’s attitude as regards
design in organism will appear from the passage about
the eye already referred to, which it may perhaps be
as well to quote in full. Mr. Darwin says : —

“ It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye
to a telescope. We know that this instrument has
been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the
highest human intellects, and we naturally infer that
the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous
process. But may not this inference be presumptuous ?
Have we any right to assume that the Creator works
by intellectual powers like those of man ? If we must
compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in
imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue,
with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then sup¬
pose every part of this layer to be continually chang¬
ing slowdy in density, so as to separate into layers of
different densities and thicknesses, placed at different
distances from each other, and with the surfaces of
each layer slowly changing in form. Further, we must
suppose that there is a power always intently watch¬
ing each slight accidental alteration in the transparent
layers, and carefully selecting each alteration which,
under varied circumstances, may in any way, or in any
degree, tend to produce a distincter image. We must
suppose each new state of the instrument to be multi-

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

plied by the million, and each to be preserved till
a better be produced, and then the old ones to be
destroyed. In living bodies variation will cause the
slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost
infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with un¬
erring skill each improvement. Let this process go
on for millions on millions of years, and during each
year on millions of individuals of many kinds ; and may
we not believe that a living optical instrument might
thus be formed as superior to one of glass as the works
of the Creator are to those of man ? *

Mr. Darwin does not in this passage deny design, or
cunning, point blank ; he was not given to denying
things point blank, nor is it immediately apparent that
he is denying design at all, for he does not emphasize
and call attention to the fact that the variations on
whose accumulation he relies for his ultimate specific
difference are accidental, and, to use his own words, in
the passage last quoted, caused by variation. He does,
indeed, in his earlier editions, call the variations “ acci¬
dental,” and accidental they remained for ten years,
but in 1869 the word “ accidental ” was taken out.
Mr. Darwin probably felt that the variations had been
accidental as long as was desirable ; and though they
would, of course, in reality remain as accidental as ever,
still, there could be no use in crying “ accidental varia¬
tions ” further. If the reader wanted to know whether
they were accidental or no, he had better find out for
himself. Mr. Darwin was a master of what may be
called scientific chiaroscuro, and owes his reputation in

* Origin of Species, ed. 1, pp. 188, 189.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 99

no small measure to the judgment with which he kept
his meaning dark when a less practised hand would
have thrown light upon it. There can, however, be no
question that Mr. Darwin, though not denying pur¬
posiveness point blank, was trying to refer the develop¬
ment of the eve to the accumulation of small accidental

improvements, which were not as a rule due to effort
and design in any way analogous to those attendant on
the development of the telescope.

Though Mr. Darwin, if he was to have any point
of difference from his grandfather, was bound to make
his variations accidental, yet, to do him justice, he
did not like it. Even in the earlier editions of the
“ Origin of Species,” where the “ alterations ” in the
passage last quoted are called “ accidental ” in express
terms, the word does not fall, so to speak, on a strong
beat of the bar, and is apt to pass unnoticed. Besides,
Mr. Darwin does not say point blank “ we may be¬
lieve,” or “ we ought to believe ; ” he only says “ may
we not believe ? ” The reader should always be on his
guard when Mr. Darwin asks one of these bland and
child-like questions, and he is fond of asking them ;
but, however this may be, it is plain, as I pointed out
in “Evolution Old and New”* that the only “skill,”
that is to say the only thing that can possibly involve
design, is “the unerring skill” of natural selection.

In the same paragraph Mr. Darwin has already
said : “ Further, we must suppose that there is a power
represented by natural selection or the survival of the
fittest always intently watching each slight altera-

* Page 9.

IOO

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

tion, &c.” Mr. Darwin probably said “ a power re¬
presented by natural selection ” instead of “ natural
selection ” only, because he saw that to talk too
frequently about the fact that the most lucky live
longest as “ intently watching ” something was greater
nonsense than it would be prudent even for him to
write, so he fogged it by making tbe intent watching
done by “ a power represented by ” a fact, instead of
by tbe fact itself. As the sentence stands it is just
as great nonsense as it would have been if “ the
survival of the fittest ” had been allowed to do the
watching instead of “ the power represented by ” the
survival of the fittest, but the nonsense is harder to
dig up, and the reader is more likely to pass it over.

This passage gave Mr. Darwin no less trouble than
it must have given to many of his readers. In the
original edition of the “ Origin of Species ” it stood,
“ Further, we must suppose that there is a power
always intently watching each slight accidental varia¬
tion.” I suppose it was felt that if this was allowed
to stand, it might be fairly asked what natural selec¬
tion was doing all this time ? If the power was
able to do everything that was necessary now, wThy
not always ? and why any natural selection at all ?
This clearly would not do, so in 1861 the power was
allowed, by the help of brackets, actually to become
natural selection, and remained so till 1869, when
Mr. Darwin could stand it no longer, and, doubtless
for the reason given above, altered the passage to “ a
power represented by natural selection,” at the same
time cutting out the word “ accidental.”

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE . ioi

It may perhaps make the workings of Mr. Darwin’s
mind clearer to the reader if I give the various read¬
ings of this passage as taken from the three most
important editions of the “ Origin of Species.”

In 1859 it stood, “Further, we must suppose that
there is a power always intently watching each slight
accidental alteration,” &c.

In 1861 it stood, “Further, we must suppose that
there is a power (natural selection) always intently
watching each slight accidental alteration,” &c.

And in 1869, “ Further, we must suppose that there
is a power represented by natural selection or the
survival of the fittest always intently watching each
slight alteration,” &c.*

The hesitating feeble gait of one who fears a pitfall
at every step, so easily recognisable in the “ numerous,
successive, slight alterations ” in the foregoing passage,
may be traced in many another page of the “ Origin
of Species ” by those who will be at the trouble of
comparing the several editions. It is only when this
is done, and the working of Mr. Darwin’s mind can
be seen as though it were the twitchings of a dog’s nose,
that any idea can be formed of the difficulty in which
he found himself involved by his initial blunder of
thinking he had got a distinctive feature which entitled
him to claim the theory of evolution as an original
idea of his own. He found his natural selection hang
round his neck like a millstone. There is hardly a
page in the “ Origin of Species ” in which traces of the
struggle going on in Mr. Darwin’s mind are not dis-

o o

102

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

cernible, with a result alike exasperating and pitiable.
I can only repeat what I said in “ Evolution Old and
New,” namely, that I find the task of extracting a well-
defined meaning out of Mr. Darwin’s words comparable
only to that of trying to act on the advice of a lawyer
who has obscured the main issue as much as he can,
and whose chief aim has been to leave as many loop¬
holes as possible for himself to escape by, if things
should go wrong hereafter. Or, again, to that of one
who has to construe an Act of Parliament which was
originally drawn with a view to throwing as much
dust as possible in the eyes of those who would oppose
the measure, and which, having been found utterly
unworkable in practice, has had clauses repealed up
and down it till it is now in an inextricable tangle of
confusion and contradiction.

The more Mr. Darwin’s work is studied, and more
especially the more his different editions are compared,
the more impossible is it to avoid a suspicion of
arriere pensfa as pervading it whenever the “ dis¬
tinctive feature” is on the tapis. It is right to say,
however, that no such suspicion attaches to Mr. A. E.
Wallace, Mr. Darwin’s fellow discoverer of natural
selection. It is impossible to doubt that Mr. Wallace
believed he had made a real and important improve¬
ment upon the Lamarckian system, and, as a natural
consequence, unlike Mr. Darwin, he began by telling
us what Lamarck had said. He did not, I admit, say
quite all that I should have been glad to have seen
him say, nor use exactly the words I should myself
have chosen, but he said enough to make it impossible

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 103

to doubt his good faith, and his desire that we should
understand that with him, as with Mr. Darwin,
variations are mainly accidental, not functional. Thus,
in his memorable paper communicated to the Linnean
Society in 1 8 5 8 he said, in a passage which I have
quoted in “Unconscious Memory” : —

“ The hypothesis of Lamarck — that progressive
changes in species have been produced by the attempts
of the animals to increase the development of their
own organs, and thus modify their structures and habits
■ — has been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers
on the subject of varieties and species; . . . but the
view here developed renders such an hypothesis quite
unnecessary. . . . The powerful retractile talons of the
falcon and cat tribes have not been produced or in¬
creased by the volition of those animals ; . . . neither
did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to
reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and con¬
stantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but be¬
cause any varieties which occurred among its antitypes
with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh
range of 'pasture over the same ground as their shorter-
necked companions , and on the first scarcity of food were
thus enabled to outlive them ” (italics in original).*

“ Which occurred ” is obviously “ which happened
to occur, by some chance or accident entirely uncon¬
nected with use and disuse ; ” and though the word
“ accidental ” is never used, there can be no doubt
about Mr. Wallace’s desire to make the reader catch

* Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Williams and
Norgate, 1858, p. 61.

104

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

the fact that with him accident, and not, as with Eras¬
mus Darwin and Lamarck, sustained effort, is the main
purveyor of the variations whose accumulation amounts
ultimately to specific difference. It is a pity, how¬
ever, that instead of contenting himself like a theologian
with saying that his opponent had been refuted over
and over again, he did not refer to any particular and
tolerably successful attempt to refute the theory that
modifications in organic structure are mainly functional.
I am fairly well acquainted with the literature of
evolution, and have never met with any such attempt.
But let this pass ; as with Mr. Darwin, so with Mr.
Wallace, and so indeed with all who accept Mr.
Charles Darwin’s natural selection as the main means
of modification, the central idea is luck, while the cen¬
tral idea of the Erasmus-Darwinian system is cunning.

I have given the opinions of these contending
parties in their extreme development; but they both
admit abatements which bring them somewhat nearer
to one another. Design, as even its most strenuous
upholders will admit, is a difficult word to deal with ;
it is, like all our ideas, substantial enough until we try
to grasp it — and then, like all our ideas, it mockingly
eludes us ; it is like life or death — a rope of many
strands ; there is design within design, and design within
undesign ; there is undesign within design (as when a
man shuffles cards designing that there shall be no design
in their arrangement), and undesign within undesign •
when we speak of cunning or design in connection
with organism we do not mean cunning, all cunning,
and nothing but cunning, so that there shall be no

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 105

place for luck ; we do not mean that conscious atten¬
tion and forethought shall have been bestowed upon
the minutest details of action, and nothing been left
to work itself out departmentally according to pre¬
cedent, or as it otherwise best may according to the
chapter of accidents.

So, again, when Mr. Darwin and his followers deny
design and effort to have been the main purveyors of
the variations whose accumulation results in specific
difference, they do not entirely exclude the action of
use and disuse — and this at once opens the door for
cunning ; nevertheless, according to Erasmus Darwin
and Lamarck, the human eye and the long neck of
the giraffe are alike due to the accumulation of varia¬
tions that are mainly functional, and hence practical ;
according to Charles Darwin they are alike due to the
accumulation of variations that are mainly accidental,
fortuitous, spontaneous, that is to say, that cannot be
reduced to any known general principle. According
to Charles Darwin “ the preservation of favoured,” or
lucky, “ races ” is by far the most important means of
modification ; according to Erasmus Darwin effort “ non
sibi res sed se rebus subjungere ” is unquestionably the
most potent means ; roughly, therefore, there is no
better or fairer way of putting the matter, than to say
that Charles Darwin is the apostle of luck, and his
grandfather, and Lamarck, of cunning.

It should be observed also that the distinction
between the organism and its surroundings — on which
both systems are founded — is one that cannot be so
universally drawn as we find it convenient to allege.

io6

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

There is a debatable ground of considerable extent
on which “ res ” and “ me,” ego and non ego, luck and
cunning, necessity and freewill, meet and pass into one
another as night and day, or life and death. No one
can draw a sharp line between ego and non ego, nor
indeed any sharp line between any classes of pheno¬
mena. Every part of the ego is non ego qua organ or
tool in use, and much of the non ego runs up into the ego
and is inseparably united with it ; still there is enough
that it is obviously most convenient to call ego, and
enough that it is no less obviously most convenient to
call non ego, as there is enough obvious day and obvious
night, or obvious luck and obvious cunning, to make us
think it advisable to keep separate accounts for each.

I will say more on this head in a following
chapter ; in this present one my business should be
confined to pointing out as clearly and succinctly as I
can the issue between the two great main contending
opinions concerning organic development that obtain
among those who accept the theory of descent at
all ; nor do I believe that this can be done more effec¬
tually and accurately than by saying, as above, that
Mr. Charles Darwin (whose name, by the way, was
“ Charles Robert,” and not, as would appear from the
title-pages of his books, “ Charles ” only), Mr. A. R.
Wallace, and their supporters are the apostles of luck,
while Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, followed, more
or less timidly, by the Geoffroys and by Mr. Herbert
Spencer, and very timidly indeed by the Duke of
Argyll, preach cunning as the most important means
of organic modification.

( io7 )

CHAPTER VII.

( Intercalated .)

ME. SPENCEE’S THE FACTOES OF OEGANIC EVOLUTION.”

Since the foregoing and several of the succeeding
chapters were written, Mr. Herbert Spencer has made
his position at once more clear and more widely
understood by his articles “ The Factors of Organic
Evolution ” which appeared in the Nineteenth Century
for April and May 1886. The present appears the
fittest place in which to intercalate remarks concern¬
ing them.

Mr. Spencer asks whether those are right who
regard Mr. Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selec¬
tion as by itself sufficient to account for organic
evolution.

“ On critically examining the evidence ” (modern
writers never examine evidence, they always “ criti¬
cally,” or “ carefully,” or “ patiently,” examine it), he
writes, “ we shall find reason to think that it by no
means explains all that has to be explained. Omit¬
ting for the present any consideration of a factor
which may be considered primordial, it may be con¬
tended that one of the factors alleged by Erasmus

io8

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

Darwin and Lamarck must be recognised as a co-
operator. Unless that increase of apart resulting from
extra activity, and that decrease of it resulting from
inactivity, are transmissible to descendants, we are
without a key to many phenomena of organic evolu¬
tion. Utterly inadequate to explain the major part
of the facts as is the hypothesis of the inheritance of
functionally produced modifications , yet there is a
minor part of the facts very extensive though less,
which must be ascribed to this cause.” (Italics mine.)

Mr. Spencer does not here say expressly that Eras¬
mus Darwin and Lamarck considered inheritance of
functionally produced modifications to be the sole
explanation of the facts of organic life ; modern
writers on evolution for the most part avoid saying
anything expressly; this nevertheless is the conclu¬
sion which the reader naturally draws — and was
doubtless intended to draw — from Mr. Spencer’s
words. He gathers that these writers put forward
an “ utterly inadequate ” theory, which cannot for a
moment be entertained in the form in which they left
it, but which, nevertheless, contains contributions to
the formation of a just opinion which of late years
have been too much neglected.

This inference would be, as Mr. Spencer ought to
know, a mistaken one. Erasmus Darwin, who was
the first to depend mainly on functionally produced
modifications, attributes, if not as much importance to
variations induced either by what we must call chance,
or by causes having no connection with use and dis¬
use, as Mr. Spencer does, still so nearly as much that

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 109

there is little to choose between them. Mr. Spencer s
words show that he attributes, if not half, still not far
off half the modification that has actually been pro¬
duced, to use and disuse. Erasmus Darwin does not
say whether he considers use and disuse to have
brought about more than half or less than half ; he
only says that animal and vegetable modification is
“ in part produced ” by the exertions of the animals
and vegetables themselves ; the impression I have
derived is, that just as Mr. Spencer considers rather
less than half to be due to use and disuse, so Erasmus
Darwin considers decidedly more than half — so much
more, in fact, than half as to make function unques¬
tionably the factor most proper to be insisted on if
onlv one can be given. Further than this he did not
go. I will quote enough of Dr. Erasmus Darwin’s
own words to put his position beyond doubt. He
writes : —

“ Thirdly, when we enumerate the great changes
produced in the species of animals before their
nativity, as, for example, when the offspring repro¬
duces the effects produced upon the parent by acci¬
dent or culture, or the changes produced by the mix¬
ture of species, as in mules ; or the changes produced
probably by exuberance of nourishment supplied to
the foetus, as in monstrous births with additional
limbs ; many of these enormities are propagated and
continued as a variety at least, if not as a new species
of animal. I have seen a breed of cats with an addi¬
tional claw on every foot ; of poultry also with an
additional claw and with wings to their feet ; and of

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

others without rumps. Mr. Buffon ” (who, by the way,
surely, was no more “ Mr. Button ” than Lord Salis¬
bury is “ Mr. Salisbury ”) “ mentions a breed of dogs
without tails which are common at Borne and Naples
— which he supposes to have been produced by a
custom long established of cutting their tails close off.” *

Here not one of the causes of variation adduced is
connected with use and disuse, or effort, volition, and
purpose ; the manner, moreover, in which they are
brought forward is not that of one who shows signs

O O

of recalcitrancy about admitting other causes of modi¬
fication as well as use and disuse ; indeed, a little
lower down he almost appears to assign the subordi¬
nate place to functionally produced modifications, for
he says — “ Fifthly, from their first rudiments or prim-
ordium to the termination of their lives, all animals
undergo perpetual transformations ; which are in part
produced by their own exertions in consequence of
their desires and aversions, of their pleasures and their
pains, or of irritations or of associations ; and many
of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted
to their posterity.”

I have quoted enough to show that Dr. Erasmus
Darwin would have protested against the supposition
that functionally produced modifications were an
adequate explanation of all the phenomena of organic
modification. He declares accident and the chances
and changes of this mortal life to be potent and fre¬
quent causes of variations, which, being not infre¬
quently inherited, result in the formation of varieties

* Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 505.

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. in

and even species, but considers these causes if taken
alone as no less insufficient to account for observable
facts than the theory of functionally produced modifi¬
cations would be if not supplemented by inherit¬
ance of so-called fortuitous, or spontaneous variations.
The difference between Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Mr.
Spencer does not consist in the denial by the first,
that a variety which happens, no matter how acci¬
dentally, to have varied in a way that enables it to
comply more fully and readily with the conditions of
its existence, is likely to live longer and leave more
offspring than one less favoured ; nor in the denial by
the second of the inheritance and accumulation of
functionally produced modifications, but in the amount
of stress which they respectively lay on the relative im¬
portance of the two great factors of organic evolution,
the existence of which they are alike ready to admit.

With Erasmus Darwin there is indeed luck, and
luck has had a great deal to do with organic modifica¬
tion, but no amount of luck would have done unless
cunning had known how to take advantage of it ;
whereas if cunning be given, a very little luck at a
time will accumulate in the course of ages and become
a mighty heap. Cunning, therefore, is the factor on
which, having regard to the usages of language and
the necessity for simplifying facts, he thinks it most
proper to insist. Surely this is as near as may be the
opinion which common consent ascribes to Mr. Spencer
himself. It is certainly the one which, in supporting
Erasmus Darwin’s system as against his grandson’s,
I have always intended to support. With Charles

1 1 2

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

Darwin, on the other hand, there is indeed cunning,
effort, and consequent use and disuse; nor does he deny
that these have produced some, and sometimes even an
important, effect in modifying species, but he assigns
by far the most important role in the whole scheme
to natural selection, which, as I have already shown,
must, with him, be regarded as a synonym for luck
pure and simple. This, for reasons well shown by Mr.
Spencer in the articles under consideration, is so un¬
tenable that it seems only possible to account for its
having been advanced at all by supposing Mr. Darwin’s
judgment to have been perverted by some one or more
of the many causes that might tend to warp them.
What the chief of those causes may have been I
shall presently point out.

Buffon erred rather on the side of ignoring function¬
ally produced modifications than of insisting on them.
The main agency with him is the direct action of the
environment upon the organism. This, no. doubt, is
a flaw in Buffon’s immortal work, but it is one which
Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck easily corrected ; nor
can we doubt that Buffon would have readily accepted
their amendment if it had been suggested to him.
Buffon did infinitely more in the way of discovering
and establishing the theory of descent with modifica¬
tion than any one has ever done either before or since.
He was too much occupied with proving the fact of
evolution at all, to dwell as fully as might have been
wished upon the details of the process whereby the
amoeba had become man, but we have already seen
that he regarded inherited mutilation as the cause of

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 113

establishing a new breed of dogs, and this is at any
rate not laying much stress on functionally produced
modifications. Again, when writing of the dog, he
speaks of variations arising “ by some chance common
enough with nature,” * and clearly does not contemplate
function as the sole cause of modification. Practically,
though I grant I should be less able to quote passages
in support of my opinion than I quite like, I do not
doubt that his position was much the same as that of
his successors, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck.

Lamarck is more vulnerable than either Erasmus
Darwin or Buffon on the score of unwillingness to
assign its full share to mere chance, but I do not for a
moment believe his comparative reticence to have been
caused by failure to see that the chapter of accidents is
a fateful one. He saw that the cunning or functional
side had been too much lost sight of, and therefore
insisted on it, but he did not mean to say that there
is no such thing as luck. “ Let us suppose,” he says,
“ that a grass growing in a low-lying meadow, gets
carried by some accident to the brow of a neighbouring
hill, where the soil is still damp enough for the plant
to be able to exist.” f Or again — “ With sufficient
time, favourable conditions of life, successive chancres
in the condition of the globe, and the power of new
surroundings and habits to modify the organs of living
bodies, all animal and vegetable forms have been
imperceptibly rendered such as we now see them.”|
Who can doubt that accident is here regarded as a

, * See Evolution Old and New, p. 122.

+ Phil. Z00L, i. p. 80. X Hid., i. 82.

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

im¬
potent factor of evolution, as well as the design that is
involved in the supposition that modification is, in the
main, functionally induced ? Again he writes, “ As
regards the circumstances that give rise to variation,
the principal are climatic changes, different tempera¬
tures of any of a creature’s environments, differences of
abode, of habit, of the most frequent actions, and lastly
of the means of obtaining food, self-defence, reproduc¬
tion,” &c. * I will not dwell on the small incon¬
sistencies which may be found in the passages quoted
above ; the reader will doubtless see them, and will
also doubtless see that in spite of them there can he
no doubt that Lamarck, while believing modification to
he effected mainly by the survival in the struggle for
existence of modifications which had been induced
functionally, would not have hesitated to admit the
survival of favourable variations due to mere accident,
as also a potent factor in inducing the results we see
around us.

Lor the rest, Mr. Spencer’s articles have relieved
me from the necessity of going into the evidence
which proves that such structures as a giraffe’s neck,
for example, cannot possibly have been produced by
the accumulation of variations which had their origin
mainly in accident. There is no occasion to add any¬
thing to what Mr. Spencer has said on this score, and
I am satisfied that those who do not find his argument
convince them would not he convinced by anything
I might say ; I shall, therefore, omit what I had
written on this subject, and confine myself to giving

* Phil. Zool., vol. i. p. 237.

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 115

the substance of Mr. Spencer’s most telling argument
against Mr. Darwin’s theory that accidental variations,
if favourable, would accumulate and result in seemingly
adaptive structures. Mr. Spencer well shows that
luck or chance is insufficient as a motive-power, or
helm, of evolution ; but luck is only absence of design ;
if, then, absence of design is found to fail, it follows
that there must have been design somewhere, nor can
the design be more conveniently placed than in asso¬
ciation with function.

Mr. Spencer contends that where life is so simple
as to consist practically in the discharge of only one
function, or where circumstances are such that some
one function is supremely important (a state of things,
by the way, more easily found in hypothesis than in
nature — at least as continuing without modification
for many successive seasons), then accidental variations,
if favourable, would indeed accumulate and result in
modification, without the aid of the transmission of
functionally produced modification. This is true ; it
is also true, however, that only a very small number
of species in comparison with those we see around us
could thus arise, and that we should never have got
plants and animals as embodiments of the two great
fundamental principles on which it is alone possible
that life can be conducted,* and species of plants and
animals as embodiments of the details involved in
carrying out these two main principles.

If the earliest organism could have only varied
favourably in one direction, the one possible favour-

* See concluding chapter.

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

able accidental variation would have accumulated
so long as the organism continued to exist at all, in¬
asmuch as this would be preserved whenever it
happened to occur, while every other would be lost
in the struggle of competitive forms ; but even in the
lowest forms of life there is more than one condition
in respect of which the organism must be supposed
sensitive, and there are as many directions in which
variations may be favourable as there are conditions
of the environment that affect the organism. We
cannot conceive of a living form as having a power
of adaptation limited to one direction only ; the
elasticity which admits of a not being “extreme to
mark that which is done amiss ” in one direction will
commonly admit of it in as many directions as there
are possible favourable modes of variation ; the number
of these, as has been just said, depends upon the
number of the conditions of the environment that
affect the organism, and these last, though in the
long run and over considerable intervals of time
tolerably constant, are over shorter intervals liable to
frequent and great changes ; so that there is nothing in
Mr. Charles Darwin’s system of modification through
the natural survival of the lucky, to prevent gain in
one direction one year from being lost irretrievably
in the next, through the greater success of some in
no way correlated variation, the fortunate possessors
of which alone survive. This, in its turn, is as likely
as not to disappear shortly through the arising of some
difficulty in some entirely new direction, and so on ;
nor, if function be regarded as of small effect in

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION . 117

determining organism, is there anything to ensure
either that, even if ground be lost for a season or two
in any one direction, it shall be recovered presently on
resumption by the organism of the habits that called
it into existence, or that it shall appear synchronously
in a sufficient number of individuals to ensure its not
being soon lost through gamogenesis.

How is progress ever to be made if races keep re¬
versing, Penelope-like, in one generation all that they
have been achieving in the preceding ? and how, on
Mr. Darwin’s system, of which the accumulation of
strokes of luck is the greatly preponderating feature,
is a hoard ever to be got together and conserved, no
matter how often luck may have thrown good things
in an organism’s way ? Luck, or absence of design,
may be sometimes almost said to throw good things in
our way, or at any rate we may occasionally get more
through having made no design than any design we
should have been likely to have formed would have
given us ; but luck does not hoard these good things
for our use and make our wills for us, nor does it keep
providing us with the same good gifts again and again,
and no matter how often we reject them.

I had better, perhaps, give Mr. Spencer’s own words
as quoted by himself in his article in the Nineteenth
Century for April 1886. He there wrote as follows,
quoting from § 166 of his “Principles of Biology,”
which appeared in 1864 : —

“ Where the life is comparatively simple, or where
surrounding circumstances render some one function
supremely important, the survival of the fittest” (which

1 1 8

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

means here the survival of the luckiest) “ may readily
bring about the appropriate structural change, without
any aid from the transmission of functionally-acquired
modifications ” (into which effort and design have
entered). “ But in proportion as the life grows com¬
plex — in proportion as a healthy existence cannot be
secured by a large endowment of some one power, but
demands many powers ; in the same proportion do
there arise obstacles to the increase of any particular
power, by ‘the preservation of favoured races in the
struggle for life ’ ” (that is to say, through mere survival
of the luckiest). “ As fast as the faculties are multi¬
plied, so fast does it become possible for the several
members of a species to have various kinds of supe¬
riority over one another. While one saves its life by
higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision,
another by keener scent, another by quicker hearing,
another by greater strength, another by unusual power
of enduring cold or hunger, another by special saga¬
city, another by special timidity, another by special
courage ; and others by other bodily and mental attri¬
butes. Now it is unquestionably true that, other
things equal, each of these attributes, giving its
possessor an equal extra chance of life, is likely to
be transmitted to posterity. But there seems no
reason to believe it will be increased in subsequent
generations by natural selection. That it may be thus
increased, the animals not possessing more than average
endowments of it must be more frequently killed off
than individuals highly endowed with it ; and this can
only happen when the attribute is one of greater im-

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 119

portance, for the time being, than most of the other
attributes. If those members of the species which
have but ordinary shares of it, nevertheless survive by
virtue of other superiorities which they severally
possess, then it is not easy to see how this particular
attribute can be developed by natural selection in
subsequent generations.” (For if some other superi¬
ority is a greater source of luck, then natural selection,
or survival of the luckiest, will ensure that this other
superiority be preserved at the expense of the one
acquired in the earlier generation). “ The probability
seems rather to be, that by gamogenesis, this extra
endowment will, on the average, be diminished in pos¬
terity — just serving in the long run to compensate
the deficient endowments of other individuals, whose
special powers lie in other directions ; and so to keep
up the normal structure of the species. The working
out of the process is here somewhat difficult to follow ”
(there is no difficulty as soon as it is perceived that
Mr. Darwin’s natural selection invariably means, or
ought to mean, the survival of the luckiest, and that
seasons and what they bring with them, though fairly
constant on an average, yet individually vary so
greatly that what is luck in one season is disaster in
another) ; “ but it appears to me that as fast as the
number of bodily and mental faculties increases, and
as fast as the maintenance of life comes to depend less
on the amount of any one, and more on the combined
action of all, so fast does the production of specialities
of character by natural selection alone become difficult.
Particularly does this seem to be so with a species so

120

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

multitudinous in powers as mankind ; and above all
does it seem to be so with such of the human powers
as have but minor shares in aiding the struggle for
life — the aesthetic faculties, for example.

“ Dwelling for a moment on this last illustration of
the class of difficulties described, let us ask how we
are to interpret the development of the musical faculty ;
. . . . how came there that endowment of musical
faculty which characterises modern Europeans at large,
as compared with their remote ancestors ? The mono¬
tonous chants of low savages cannot be said to show
any melodic inspiration ; and it is not evident that an
individual savage who had a little more musical per¬
ception than the rest would derive any such advantage
in the maintenance of life as would secure the spread
of his superiority by inheritance of the variation,” &c.

It should be observed that the passage given in the
last paragraph but one appeared in 1864, only five
years after the first edition of the “ Origin of Species,”
but, crushing as it is, Mr. Darwin never answered it.
He treated it as non-existent — and this, doubtless from
a business standpoint, was the best thing he could do.
How far such a course was consistent with that single-
hearted devotion to the interests of science for which
Mr. Darwin developed such an abnormal reputation, is
a point which I must leave to his many admirers to
determine.

( 121 )

CHAPTER VIII.

PROPERTY, COMMON SENSE, AND PROTOPLASM.

One would think the issue stated in the three preced¬
ing chapters was decided in the stating. This, as I
have already implied, is probably the reason why those
who have a vested interest in Mr. Darwin’s philo¬
sophical reputation have avoided stating it.

It may be said that, seeing the result is a joint one,
inasmuch as both “ res ” and “ me,” or both luck and
cunning, enter so largely into development, neither
factor can claim pre-eminence to the exclusion of the
other. But life is short and business long, and if we
are to get the one into the other we must suppress
details, and leave our words pregnant, as painters
leave their touches when painting from nature. If
one factor concerns us greatly more than the other,
we should emphasize it, and let the other go without
saying by force of association. There is no fear of its
being lost sight of ; association is one of the few really
liberal things in nature ; by liberal, I mean precipitate
and inaccurate ; the power of words, as of pictures,
and indeed the power to carry on life at all, vests in
the fact that association does not stick to the letter of

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

122

its bond, but will take the half for the whole without
even looking closely at the coin given to make sure
that it is not counterfeit. Through the haste and high
pressure of business, errors arise continually, and these
errors give us the shocks of which our consciousness
is compounded. Our whole conscious life, therefore,
grows out of memory and out of the power of associa¬
tion, in virtue of which not only does the right half
pass for the whole, but the wrong half not infrequently
passes current for it also, without being challenged and
found out till, as it were, the accounts come to be
balanced, and it is found that they will not do so.

Variations are an organism’s way of getting over an
unexpected discrepancy between its resources as shown
by the fly-leaves of its own cheques and the universe’s
pass-book ; the universe is generally right, or would
be upheld as right if the matter were to come before
the not too incorruptible courts of nature, and in nine
cases out of ten the organism has made the error in
its own favour, so that it must now pay or die. It
can only pay by altering its mode of life, and how long
is it likely to be before a new departure in its mode
of life comes out in its own person and in those of its
family ? Granted it will at first come out in their
appearance only, but there can be no change in appear¬
ance without some slight corresponding organic modifi¬
cation. In practice there is usually compromise in
these matters. The universe, if it does not give an
organism short shrift and eat it at once, will commonly
abate something of its claim; it gets tricked out of
an additional moiety by the organism ; the organism

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

123

really does pay something by way of changed habits ;
this results in variation, in virtue of which the accounts
are cooked, cobbled, and passed by a series of those
miracles of inconsistency which we call compromises,
and after this they cannot be reopened — not till
next time.

Surely of the two factors which go to the making
up of development, cunning is the one more proper to
be insisted on as determining the physical and psychical
well or ill being, and hence, ere long, the future form
of the organism. We can hardly open a newspaper
without seeing some sign of this ; take, for example,
the following extract from a letter in the Times of the
day on which I am writing (Feb. 8, 1886) — “ You may
pass along a road which divides a settlement of Irish
Celts from one of Germans. They all came to the
country equally without money, and have had to fight
their way in the forest, but the difference in their
condition is very remarkable ; on the German side
there is comfort, thrift, peace, but on the other side
the spectacle is very different.” Few will deny that
slight organic differences, corresponding to these differ¬
ences of habit, are already perceptible ;■ no Darwinian
will deny that these differences are likely to be inherited,
and, in the absence of intermarriage between the two
colonies, to result in still more typical difference than
that which exists at present. According to Mr.
Darwin, the improved type of the more successful race
would not be due mainly to transmitted perseverance
in well-doing, but to the fact that if any member of
the German colony “ happened ” to be born “ ever so

124

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

slightly,” &c. Of course this last is true to a certain
extent also ; if any member of the German colony
does “ happen to be born/' &c, then he will stand a
better chance of surviving, and, if he marries a wife
like himself, of transmitting his good qualities ; but
how about the happening ? How is it that this is of
such frequent occurrence in the one colony, and is so
rare in the other ? Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis.
True, but how and why ? Through the race being
favoured ? In one sense, doubtless, it is true that no
man can have anything except it be given him from
above, but it must be from an above into the composi¬
tion of which he himself largely enters. God gives
us all tilings ; but we are a part of God, and that part
of Him, moreover, whose department it more especially
is to look after ourselves. It cannot be through luck,
for luck is blind, and does not pick out the same
people year after year and generation after generation ;
shall we not rather say, then, that it is because mind,
or cunning, is a great factor in the achievement of
physical results, and because there is an abiding
memory between successive generations, in virtue of
which the cunning of an earlier one enures to the
benefit of its successors ?

It is one of the commonplaces of biology that the
nature of the organism (which is mainly determined
by ancestral antecedents) is greatly more important
in determining its future than the conditions of its
environment, provided, of course, that these are not
too cruelly abnormal, so that good seed will do better
on rather poor soil, than bad seed on rather good soil ;

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

I25

this alone should be enough to show that cunning, or
individual effort, is more important in determining
organic results than luck is, and therefore that if
either is to be insisted on to the exclusion of the
other, it should be cunning, not luck. Which is more
correctly said to be the main means of the develop¬
ment of capital — Luck ? or Cunning ? Of course there
must be something to be developed — and luck, that
is to say, the unknowable and unforeseeable, enters
everywhere ; but is it more convenient with our oldest
and best-established ideas to say that luck is the main
means of the development of capital, or that cunning
is so ? Can there be a moment’s hesitation in admit¬
ting that if capital is found to have been developed
largely, continuously, by many people, in many ways,
over a long period of time, it can only have been by
means of continued application, energy, effort, industry,
and good sense ? Granted there has been luck too ;
of course there has, but we let it go without saying,
whereas we cannot let the skill or cunning go without

O O

saying, inasmuch as we feel the cunning to have been
the essence of the whole matter.

Granted, again, that there is no test more fallacious
on a small scale than that of immediate success. As
applied to any particular individual, it breaks down
completely. It is unfortunately no rare thing to see
the good man striving against fate, and the fool born
with a silver spoon in his mouth. Still on a large
scale no test can be conceivably more reliable ; a
blockhead may succeed for a time, but a succession of
many generations of blockheads does not go on steadily

126

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

gaining ground, adding field to field and farm to farm,
and becoming year by year more capable and prosper¬
ous. Given time — of which there is no scant in the
matter of organic development — and cunning will do
more with ill luck than folly with good. People do
not hold six trumps every hand for a dozen games of
whist running, if they do not keep a card or two up
their sleeves. Cunning, if it can keep its head above
water at all, will beat mere luck unaided by cunning,
no matter what start luck may have had, if the race
be a fairly long one. Growth is a kind of success
which does indeed come to some organisms with less
effort than to others, but it cannot be maintained and
improved upon without pains and effort. A foolish
organism and its fortuitous variation will be soon
parted, for, as a general rule, unless the variation has
so much connection with the organism’s past habits
and ways of thought as to be in no proper sense of
the word “ fortuitous,” the organism will not know
what to do with it when it has got it, no matter how
favourable it may be, and it is little likely to be
handed down to descendants. Indeed the kind of
people who get on best in the world — and what test
to a Darwinian can be comparable to this ? — commonly
do insist on cunning rather than on luck, sometimes
perhaps even unduly ; speaking, at least, from experi¬
ence, I have generally found myself more or less of a
failure with those Darwinians to whom I have endea¬
voured to excuse my shortcomings on the score of
luck.

It may be said that the contention that the nature

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

12 7

of the organism does more towards determining its
future than the conditions of its immmediate environ¬
ment do, is only another way of saying that the
accidents which have happened to an organism in the
persons of its ancestors throughout all time are more
irresistible by it for good or ill than any of the more
ordinary chances and changes of its own immediate
life. I do not deny this ; but these ancestral accidents
were either turned to account, or neglected -where they
might have been taken advantage of ; they thus passed
either into skill, or want of skill ; so that whichever
way the fact is stated the result is the same ; and if
simplicity of statement be regarded, there is no more
convenient way of putting the matter than to say
that though luck is mighty, cunning is mightier still.
Organism commonly shows its cunning by practising
what Horace preached, and treating itself as more plastic
than its surroundings ; those indeed who have had the
greatest reputation as moulders of circumstances have
ever been the first to admit that they have gained
their ends more by shaping their actions and them¬
selves to suit events, than by trying to shape events
to suit themselves and their actions. Modification, like
charity, begins at home.

But however this may be, there can be no doubt
that cunning is in the long run mightier than luck as
regards the acquisition of property, and what applies
to property applies to organism also. Property, as I
have lately seen was said by Eosmini, is a kind of
extension of the personality into the outside world.
He might have said as truly that it is a kind of pene-

128

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

tration of the outside world within the limits of the
personality, or that it is at any rate a prophesying of,
and essay after, the more living phase of matter in the
direction of which it is tending. If approached from
the dynamical or living side of the underlying sub¬
stratum, it is the beginning of the comparatively stable
equilibrium which we call brute matter ; if from the
statical side, that is to say, from that of brute matter,
it is the beginning of that dynamical state which we
associate with life ; it is the last of ego and first of
non ego, or vice versd, as the case may be ; it is the
ground whereon the two meet and are neither wholly
one nor wholly the other, but a whirling mass of con¬
tradictions such as attends all fusion.

What property is to a man’s mind or soul that his
body is also, only more so. The body is property carried
to the bitter end, or property is the body carried to the
bitter end, whichever the reader chooses; the expres¬
sion “ organic wealth ” is not figurative ; none other is
so apt and accurate ; so universally, indeed, is this
recognised that the fact has found expression in our
liturgy, which bids us pray for all those who are any
wise afflicted “ in mind, body, or estate ; ” no inference,
therefore, can be more simple and legitimate than the
one in accordance with which the laws that govern the
development of wealth generally are supposed also to
govern the particular form of health and wealth which
comes most closely home to us — I mean that of our
bodily implements or organs. What is the stomach
but a living sack, or purse of untanned leather, wherein
we keep our means of subsistence ? Food is money

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE . 129

made easy ; it is petty casli in its handiest and most
reduced form ; it is our way of assimilating our pos¬
sessions and making them indeed our own. What is
the purse hut a kind of abridged extra corporeal
stomach wherein we keep the money which we convert
by purchase into food, as we presently convert the
food by digestion into flesh and blood ? And what
living form is there which is without a purse or
stomach, even though it have to job it by the meal
as the amoeba does, and exchange it for some other
article as soon as it has done eating? How marvel-
lously does the analogy hold between the purse and
the stomach alike as regards form and function ; and
I may say in passing that, as usual, the organ which
is the more remote from protoplasm is at once more
special, more an object of our consciousness, and less
an object of its own.

Talk of ego and non ego meeting, and of the hope¬
lessness of avoiding contradiction in terms — talk of this,
and look, in passing, at the amoeba. It is itself qua
maker of the stomach and being fed ; it is not itself
qua stomach and qua its using itself as a mere tool or
implement to feed itself with. It is active and passive,
object and subject, ego and non ego — every kind of Irish
bull, in fact, which a sound logician abhors — and it is
only because it has persevered, as I said in “ Life
and Habit,” in thus defying logic and arguing most
virtuously in a most vicious circle, that it has come
in the persons of some of its descendants to reason
with sufficient soundness. And what the amoeba is
man is also ; man is only a great many amccbas, most

130

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

of them dreadfully narrow-minded, going up and down
the country with their goods and chattels like gipsies
in a caravan ; he is only a great many amcebas that
have had much time and money spent on their educa¬
tion, and received large bequests of organised intelli¬
gence from those that have gone before them.

The most incorporate tool — we will say an eye, or a
tooth, or the closed fist when used to strike — has still
something of the non ego about it in so far as it is used ;
those organs, again, that are the most completely sepa¬
rate from the body, as the locomotive engine, must
still from time to time kiss the soil of the human
body, and be handled and thus crossed with man
again if they would remain in working order. They
cannot be cut adrift from the most living form of
matter (I mean most living from our point of view),
and remain absolutely without connection with it for
any length of time, any more than a fish can live
without coming up sometimes to breathe ; and in so far
as they become linked on to living beings they live.
Everything is living which is in close communion with,
and inter-permeated by, that something which we call
mind or thought. Giordano Bruno saw this long ago
when he made an interlocutor in one of his dialogues
say that a man's hat and cloak are alive when he
is wearing them. “ Thy boots and spurs live,” he
exclaims, *'c when thy feet carry them ; thy hat lives
when thy head is within it ; and so the stable lives
when it contains the horse or mule, or even yourself;”
nor is it easy to see how this is to be refuted except
at a cost which no one in his senses will offer.

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE . 131

It may be said that the life of clothes in wear and
implements in use is no true life, inasmuch as it differs
from flesh and blood life in too many and important
respects ; that we have made up our minds about not
letting life outside the body too decisively to allow the
question to be reopened; that if this be tolerated we
shall have societies for the prevention of cruelty to
chairs and tables, or cutting clothes amiss, or wearing
them to tatters, or whatever other absurdity may occur
to idle and unkind people ; the whole discussion, there¬
fore, should be ordered out of court at once.

I admit that this is much the most sensible position
to take, but it can only be taken by those who turn
the deafest of deaf ears to the teachings of science, and
tolerate no going even for a moment below the surface
of things. People who take this line must know how
to put their foot down firmly in the matter of closing
a discussion. Some one may perhaps innocently say
that some parts of the body are more living and vital
than others, and those who stick to common sense may
allow this, but if they do they must close the discussion
on the spot ; if they listen to another syllable they are
lost ; if they let the innocent interlocutor say so much
as that a piece of well-nourished healthy brain is more
living than the end of a finger-nail that wants cutting,
or than the calcareous parts of a bone, the solvent will
have been applied which will soon make an end of
common sense ways of looking at the matter. Once
even admit the use of the participle “dying,’7 which
involves degrees of death, and hence an entry of death
in part into a living body, and common sense must

132

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

either close the discussion at once, or ere long surrender
at discretion.

Common sense can only carry weight in respect of
matters with which every one is familiar, as forming
part of the daily and hourly conduct of affairs ; if we
would keep our comfortable hard and fast lines, our
rough and ready unspecialised ways of dealing with
difficult questions, our impatience of what St. Paul
calls “ doubtful disputations,” we must refuse to quit
the ground on which the judgments of mankind have
been so long and often given that they are not likely
to be questioned. Common sense is not yet formu¬
lated in manners of science or philosophy, for only
few consider them ; few decisions, therefore, have been
arrived at which all hold final. Science is, like love,
“too young to know what conscience/’ or common
sense, “ is.” As soon as the world began to busy itself
with evolution it said good-bye to common sense, and
must get on with uncommon sense as best it can.
The first lesson that uncommon sense will teach it is
that contradiction in terms is the foundation of all
sound reasoning — and, as an obvious consequence,
compromise, the foundation of all sound practice.
This, it follows easily, involves the corollary that as
faith, to be of any value, must be based on reason, so
reason, to be of any value, must be based on faith, and
that neither can stand alone or dispense with the other,
any more than culture or vulgarity can stand unalloyed
with one another without much danger of mischance.

It may not perhaps be immediately apparent why
the admission that a piece of healthy living brain is

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

1 33

more living than the end of a finger-nail, is so
dangerous to common sense ways of looking at life
and death ; I had better, therefore, he more explicit.
By this admission degrees of livingness are admitted
within the body ; * this involves approaches to non-
livingness. On this the question arises, “ Which are
the most living parts ? ” The answer to this was
given a few years ago with a flourish of trumpets, and
our biologists shouted with one voice, “ Great is proto¬
plasm. There is no life but protoplasm, and Huxley
is its prophet.” Read Huxley’s “ Physical Basis of
Mind.” Read Professor Mivart’s article, “ What is a
Living Being ? ” in the Contemporary Review , July
1 879. Read Dr. Andrew Wilson’s article in the Gentle¬
mans Magazine , October 1879. Remember Professor
Allman’s address to the British Association, 1879;
ask, again, any medical man what is the most approved
scientific attitude as regards the protoplasmic and non-
protoplasmic parts of the body, and he will say that
the thinly veiled conclusion arrived at by all of them
is, that the protoplasmic parts are alone truly living,
and that the non-protoplasmic are non-living.

It may suffice if I confine myself to Professor
Allman’s address to the British Association in 1879, as
a representative utterance. Professor Allman said : —

“ Protoplasm lies at the base of every vital pheno¬
menon. It is, as Huxley has well expressed it, ‘ the
physical basis of life wherever there is life from its
lowest to its highest manifestation there is proto¬
plasm ; wherever there is protoplasm there is life.” *

* Report, 9. 26.

134

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

To say wherever there is life there is protoplasm, is
to say that there can be no life without protoplasm,
and this is saying that where there is no protoplasm
there is no life. But large parts of the body are non-
protoplasmic ; a bone is, indeed, permeated by proto¬
plasm, but it is not protoplasm ; it follows, therefore,
that according to Professor Allman bone is not in any
proper sense of words a living substance. Prom this
it should follow, and doubtless does follow in Professor
Allman’s mind, that large tracts of the human body,
if not the greater part by weight (as bones, skin, mus¬
cular tissue, &c.), are no more alive than a coat or
pair of boots in wear is alive, except in so far as the
bones, &c., are more closely and nakedly permeated by
protoplasm than the coat or boots, and are thus brought
into closer, directer, and more permanent communica¬
tion with that which, if not life itself, still has more
of the ear of life, and comes nearer to its royal person
than anything else does. Indeed that this is Professor
Allman’s opinion appears from the passage on page 2 6
of the report, in which he says that in “ protoplasm
we find the only form of matter in which life can
manifest itself.”

According to this view the skin and other tissues
are supposed to be made from dead protoplasm which
living protoplasm turns to account as the British
Museum authorities are believed to stuff their new
specimens with the skins of old ones ; the matter used
by the living protoplasm for this purpose is held to
be entirely foreign to protoplasm itself, and no more
capable of acting in concert with it than bricks can

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE .

*35

understand and act in concert with the bricklayer.
As the bricklayer is held to be living and the bricks
non-living, so the bones and skin which protoplasm
is supposed to construct are held non-living and the
protoplasm alone living. Protoplasm, it is said, goes
about masked behind the clothes or habits which it
has fashioned. It has habited itself as animals and
plants, and we have mistaken the garment for the
wearer — as our dogs and cats doubtless think with
Giordano Bruno that our boots live when we are
wearing them, and that we keep spare paws in our
bedrooms which lie by the wall and go to sleep when
we have not got them on.

If, in answer to the assertion that the osseous parts of
bone are non-living, it is said that they must be living,
for they heal if broken, which no dead matter can do,
it is answered that the broken pieces of bone do not
grow together ; they are mended by the protoplasm
which permeates the Haversian canals ; the bones
themselves are no more living merely because they
are tenanted by something which really does live, than
a house lives because men and women inhabit it ; and
if a bone is repaired, it no more repairs itself than a
house can be said to have repaired itself because its
owner has sent for the bricklayer and seen that what
was wanted was done.

We do not know, it is said, by what means the
structureless viscid substance which we call proto¬
plasm can build for itself a solid bone ; we do not
understand how an amoeba makes its test ; no one
understands how anything is done unless he can do it

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

135 1

himself ; and even then he probably does not know
how he has done it. Set a man who has never painted,
to watch Rembrandt paint the burgomaster Six, and
he will no more understand how Rembrandt can have
done it, than we can understand how the amoeba
makes its test, or the protoplasm cements two broken
ends of a piece of bone. “ Ces choses se font mais ne
scxpliquent jpas” So some denizen of another planet
looking at our earth through a telescope which showed
him much, but still not quite enough, and seeing the
St. Gothard tunnel plomb on end so that he would not
see the holes of entry and exit, would think the trains
there a kind of caterpillar which went through the
mountain by a pure effort of the will — that enabled
them in some mysterious way to disregard material
obstacles and dispense with material means. We
know, of course, that it is not so, and that exemption
from the toil attendant on material obstacles has been
compounded for, in the ordinary way, by the single
payment of a tunnel ; and so with the cementing of a
bone, our biologists say that the protoplasm, which is
alone living, cements it much as a man might mend
a piece of broken china, but that it works by methods
and processes which elude us, even as the holes of the
St. Gothard tunnel may be supposed to elude a denizen
of another world.

The reader will already have seen that the toils are
beginning to close round those who, while professing to
be guided by common sense, still parley with even the
most superficial probers beneath the surface ; this, how¬
ever, will appear more clearly in the following chapter.

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

137

It will* also appear how far-reaching were the conse¬
quences of the denial of design that was involved in
Mr. Darwin’s theory that luck is the main element
in survival, and how largely this theory is responsible
for the fatuous developments in connection alike with
protoplasm and automatism which a few years ago
seemed about to carry everything before them.

( US )

CHAPTER IX.

PROPERTY, COMMON SENSE, AND PROTOPLASM.

{continual).

The position, then, stands thus. Common sense gave
the inch of admitting some parts of the body to be less
living than others, and philosophy took the ell of
declaring the body to be almost nil of it stone dead.
This is serious ; still if it were all, for a quiet life, we
might put u]) with it. Unfortunately we know only
too well that it will not be all. Our bodies, which
seemed so living and now prove so dead, have served
us such a trick that we can have no confidence in any¬
thing connected with them. As with skin and bones
to-day, so with protoplasm to-morrow. Protoplasm is
mainly oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon ; if we
do not keep a sharp look-out, we shall have it going
the way of the rest of the body, and being declared
dead in respect, at any rate, of these inorganic com¬
ponents. Science has not, 1 believe, settled all the
components of protoplasm, but this is neither here
nor there ; she lias settled what it is in great part,
and there is no trusting her not to settle the rest at
any moment, even if she has not already done so. As

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

139

soon as this has been done we shall be told that nine-
tenths of the protoplasm of which we are composed
must go the way of our non-protoplasmic parts, and
that the only really living part of us is the something
with a new name that runs the protoplasm that runs
the flesh and bones that run the organs -

Why stop here ? Why not add “ which run the
tools and properties which are as essential to our life
and health as much that is actually incorporate with
us ? ” The same breach which has let the non-living
effect a lodgment within the body must, in all equity,
let the organic character — the bodiliness, so to speak
— pass out beyond its limits and effect a lodgment in
our temporary and extra-corporeal limbs. What, on
the protoplasmic theory, the skin and bones are, that
the hammer and spade are also ; they differ in the
degree of closeness and permanence with which they
are associated with protoplasm, but both bones and
hammers are alike non-living things which protoplasm
uses for its own purposes and keeps closer or less close
at hand as custom and convenience may determine.

According to this view, the non-protoplasmic parts
of the body are tools of the first degree ; they are not
living, but they are in such close and constant contact
with that which really lives, that an aroma of life
attaches to them. Some of these, however, such as
horns, hooves, and tusks, are so little permeated by
protoplasm that they cannot rank much higher than
the tools of the second degree, which come next to
them in order.

These tools of the second degree are either picked

140

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

up ready-made, or are manufactured directly by the
body, as being torn or bitten into shape, or as stones
picked up to throw at prey or at an enemy.

Tools of the third degree are made by the instru¬
mentality of tools of the second and first degrees ; as,
for example, chipped flint, arrow-heads, &c.

Tools of the fourth degree are made by those of the
third, second, and first. They consist of the simpler
compound instruments that yet require to be worked
by hand, as hammers, spades, and even hand flour¬
mills.

Tools of the fifth degree are made by the help of
those of the fourth, third, second, and first. They are
compounded of many tools, worked, it may be, by
steam or water and requiring no constant contact with
the body.

But each one of these tools of the fifth degree was
made in the first instance by the sole instrumentality
of the four preceding kinds of tool. They must all
be linked on to protoplasm, which is the one original
tool-maker, but which can only make the tools that
are more remote from itself by the help of those that
are nearer, that is to say, it can only work when it has
suitable tools to work with, and when it is allowed to
use them in its own way. There can be no direct
communication between protoplasm and a steam-engine ;
there may be and often is direct communication between
machines of even the fifth order and those of the first,
as when an engine-man turns a cock, or repairs some¬
thing with his own hands if he has nothing better to
work with. But put a hammer, for example, to a piece

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

141

of protoplasm, and the protoplasm will no more know
what to do with it than we should be able to saw a
piece of wood in two without a saw. Even protoplasm
from the hand of a carpenter who has been handling
hammers all his life would be hopelessly put off its
stroke if not allowed to work in its usual way but put
bare up against a hammer ; it would make a slimy
mess and then dry up ; still there can be no doubt (so
at least those who uphold protoplasm as the one living
substance would say) that the closer a machine can begot
to protoplasm and the more permanent the connection,
the more living it appears to be, or at any rate the
more does it appear to be endowed with spontaneous
and reasoning energy, so long, of course, as the close¬
ness is of a kind which protoplasm understands and is
familiar with. This, they say, is why we do not like
using any implement or tool with gloves on, for these
impose a barrier between the tool and its true con¬
nection with protoplasm by means of the nervous
system. For the same reason we put gloves on when
we box so as to bar the connection.

That which we handle most unglovedly is our food,
which we handle with our stomachs rather than with
our hands. Our hands are so thickly encased with
skin that protoplasm can hold but small conversation
with what they contain, unless it be held for a long
time in the closed fist, and even so the converse is
impeded as in a strange language ; the inside of our
mouths is more naked, and our stomachs are more
naked still ; it is here that protoplasm brings its
fullest powers of suasion to bear on those whom it

142

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

would proselytise and receive as it were into its own
communion — whom it would convert and bring into a
condition of mind in which they shall see things as it
sees them itself, and, as we commonly say, “ agree
with ” it, instead of standing out stiffly for their own
opinion. We call this digesting our food; more pro¬
perly we should call it being digested by our food,
which reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests us,
till it comes to understand us and encourage us by
assuring us that we were perfectly right all the time,
no matter what any one might have said, or say, to
the contrary. Having thus recanted all its own past
heresies, it sets to work to convert everything that
comes near it and seems in the least likely to be con¬
verted. Eating is a mode of love ; it is an effort after
a closer union; so we say we love roast beef. A
French lady told me once that she adored veal ; and
a nurse tells her child that she would like to eat it.
Even he who caresses a dog or horse pro tanto both
weds and eats it. Strange how close the analogy
between love and hunger; in each case the effort is
after closer union and possession ; in each case the
outcome is reproduction (for nutrition is the most
complete of reproductions), and in each case there are
residua. But to return.

I have shown above that one consequence of the
attempt so vigorously made a few years ago to establish
protoplasm as the one living substance, is the making
it clear that the non-protoplasmic parts of the body
and the simpler extra-corporeal tools or organs must
run on all fours in the matter of livingness and non-

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

livingness. If the protoplasmic parts of the body are
held living in virtue of their being used by something
that really lives, then so, though in a less degree,
must tools and machines. If, on the other hand, tools
and machines are held non-living inasmuch as they
only owe what little appearance of life they may
present when in actual use to something else that
lives, and have no life of their own — so, though in a
less degree, must the non-protoplasmic parts of the
body. Allow an overflowing aroma of life to vivify
the horny skin under the heel, and from this there
will be a spilling which will vivify the boot in wear.
Deny an aroma of life to the boot in wear, and it
must ere long be denied to ninety-nine per cent, of the
body ; and if the body is not alive while it can walk
and talk, what in the name of all that is unreasonable
can be held to be so ?

That the essential identity of bodily organs and
tools is no ingenious paradoxical way of putting things
is evident from the fact that we speak of bodily organs
at all. Organ means tool. There is nothing which
reveals our most genuine opinions to us so unerringly
as our habitual and unguarded expressions, and in the
case under consideration so completely do we instinc¬
tively recognise the underlying identity of tools and
limbs, that scientific men use the word “ organ ” for
any part of the body that discharges a function, prac¬
tically to the exclusion of any other term. Of course,
however, the above contention as to the essential
identity of tools and organs does not involve a denial
of their obvious superficial differences — differences so

144

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

many and so great as to justify our classing them in
distinct categories so long as we have regard to the
daily purposes of life without looking at remoter ones.

If the above be admitted, we can now reply to those
who in an earlier chapter objected to our saying that
if Mr. Darwin denied design in the eye he should
deny it in the burglar’s jemmy also. For if bodily
and non-bodily organs are essentially one in kind,
beino; each of them both living and non-living, and
each of them only a higher development of principles
already admitted and largely acted on in the other,
then the method of procedure observable in the evolu¬
tion of the organs whose history is within our ken
should throw light upon the evolution of that whose
history goes back into so dim a past that we can only
know it by way of inference. In the absence of any
show of reason to the contrary we should argue from
the known to the unknown, and presume that even
as our non-bodily organs originated and were developed
through gradual accumulation of design, effort, and
contrivance guided by experience, so also must our
bodily organs have been, in spite of the fact that the
contrivance has been, as it were, denuded of external
evidences in the course of long time. This at least is
the most obvious inference to draw ; the burden of proof
should rest not with those who uphold function as
the most important means of organic modification,
but with those who impugn it; it is hardly necessary,
however, to say that Mr. Darwin never attempted to
impugn by way of argument the conclusions either
of his grandfather or of Lamarck. He waved them

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE .

both aside in one or two short semi-contemptuons
sentences, and said no more about them — not, at least,
until late in life he wrote his “ Erasmus Darwin,” and
even then his remarks were purely biographical ; he
did not say one syllable by way of refutation, or even
of explanation.

I am free to confess that, overwhelming as is the
evidence brought forward by Mr. Spencer in the
articles already referred to, as showing that accidental
variations, unguided by the helm of any main general
principle which should as it were keep their heads
straight, could never accumulate with the results sup¬
posed by Mr. Darwin ; and overwhelming, again, as is
the consideration that Mr. Spencer’s most crushing
argument was allowed by Mr. Darwin to go without
reply, still the considerations arising from the dis¬
coveries of the last forty years or so in connection
with protoplasm, seem to me almost more overwhelm¬
ing still. This evidence proceeds on different lines
from that adduced by Mr. Spencer, but it points to
the same conclusion, namely, that though luck will
avail much if backed by cunning and experience, it is
unavailing for any permanent result without them.
There is an irony which seems almost always to attend
on those who maintain that protoplasm is the only
living substance which ere long points their conclusions
the opposite way to that which they desire — in the
very last direction, indeed, in which they of all people
in the world would willingly see them pointed.

It may be asked why I should have so strong

an objection to seeing protoplasm as the only living

146

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

substance, when I find this view so useful to me as
tending to substantiate design — which I admit that I
have as much and as seriously at heart as I can allow
myself to have any matter which, after all, can
so little affect daily conduct ; I reply that it is no
part of my business to inquire whether this or that
makes for my pet theories or against them ; my
concern is to inquire whether or no it is borne out
by facts, and I find the opinion that protoplasm is
the one living substance unstable, inasmuch as it is
an attempt to make a halt where no halt can be
made. This is enough; but, furthermore, the fact
that the protoplasmic parts of the body are more
living than the non-protoplasmic — which I cannot
deny, without denying that it is any longer con¬
venient to think of life and death at all — will answer
my purpose to the full as well or better.

I pointed out another consequence, which, again,
was cruelly the reverse of what the promoters of the
protoplasm movement might be supposed anxious to
arrive at — -in a series of articles which appeared in
the Examiner during the summer of 1879, and
showed that if protoplasm were held to be the sole
seat of life, then this unity in the substance vivifying
all, both animals and plants, must be held as uniting
them into a single corporation or body — especially
when their community of descent is borne in mind —
more effectually than any merely superficial separation
into individuals can be held to disunite them, and
that thus protoplasm must be seen as the life of the
world — as a vast body corporate, never dying till the

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE .

147

' eartli itself shall pass away. This came practically to
saying that protoplasm was God Almighty, who, of all
the forms open to Him, had chosen this singularly
unattractive one as the channel through which to
make Himself manifest in the flesh by taking our
nature upon Him, and animating us with His own
Spirit. Our biologists, in fact, were fast nearing the
conception of a God who was both* personal and
material, but who could not be made to square with
pantheistic notions inasmuch as no provision was
made for the inorganic world ; and, indeed, they seem
to have become alarmed at the grotesqueness of the
position in which they must ere long have found
themselves, for in the autumn of 1879 the boom
collapsed, and thenceforth the leading reviews and
magazines have known protoplasm no more. About
the same time bathybius, which at one time bade fair
to supplant it upon the throne of popularity, died
suddenly, as I am told, at Norwich, under circum¬
stances which did not transpire, nor has its name, so
far as I am aware, been ever again mentioned.

So much for the conclusions in regard to the larger
aspect of life taken as a whole which must follow
from confining life to protoplasm ; but there is another
aspect — that, namely, which regards the individual.
The inevitable consequences of confining life to the
protoplasmic parts of the body were just as unex¬
pected and unwelcome here as they had been with
regard to life at large ; for, as I have already pointed
out, there is no drawing the line at protoplasm and
resting at this point ; nor yet at the next halting-

148

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

point beyond ; nor at the one beyond that. How
often is this process to be repeated ? and in what can
it end but in the rehabilitation of the soul as an
ethereal, spiritual, vital principle, apart from matter,
which, nevertheless, it animates, vivifying the clay of
our bodies ? No one who has followed the course
either of biology or psychology during this century,
and more especially during the last five and twenty
years, will tolerate the reintroduction of the soul as
something apart from the substratum in which both
feeling and action must be held to inhere. The notion
of matter being ever changed except by other matter
in another state is so shocking to the intellectual
conscience that it may be dismissed without discussion ;
yet if bathybius had not been promptly dealt with, it
must have become apparent even to the British public
that there were indeed but few steps from protoplasm,
as the only living substance, to vital principle. Our
biologists therefore stifled bathybius, perhaps with
justice, certainly with prudence, and left protoplasm
to its fate.

Any one who reads Professor Allman’s address
above referred to with due care will see that he was
uneasy about protoplasm, even at the time of its
greatest popularity. Professor Allman never says out¬
right that the non-protoplasmic parts of the body are
no more alive than chairs and tables are. He said
what involved this as an inevitable consequence, and
there can be no doubt that this is what he wanted to
convey, but he never insisted on it with the out¬
spokenness and emphasis with which so startling a

PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE.

149

paradox should alone be offered us for acceptance ;
nor is it easy to believe that his reluctance to express
his conclusion totidein verbis was not due to a sense
that it might ere long prove more convenient not to
have done so. When I advocated the theory of the
livingness, or quasi-livingness, of machines, in the
chapters of “ Erewhon ” of which all else that I have
written on biological subjects is a development, I took
care that people should see the position in its extreme
form ; the non-livingness of bodily organs is to the
full as startling a paradox as the livingness of non-
bodily ones, and we have a right to expect the fullest
explicitness from those who advance it. Of course it
must be borne in mind that a machine can only claim
any appreciable even aroma of livingness so long as
it is in actual use. In “ Erewhon ” I did not think it
necessary to insist on this, and did not, indeed, yet
fully know what I was driving at.

The same disposition to avoid committing them¬
selves to the assertion that any part of the body is
non-living may be observed in the writings of the
other authorities upon protoplasm above referred to ;
I have searched all they said, and cannot find a single
passage in which they declare even the osseous parts
of a bone to be non-living, though this conclusion
was the raison d'etre of all they were saying and fol¬
lowed as an obvious inference. The reader will pro¬
bably agree with me in thinking that such reticence can
only have been due to a feeling that the ground was
one on which it behoved them to walk circumspectly ;
they probably felt, after a vague, ill-defined fashion,

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

150

that the more they reduced the body to mechanism
the more they laid it open to an opponent to raise
mechanism to the body ; hut, however this may be,
they dropped protoplasm, as I have said, in some haste
with the autumn of 1879.

( i5i )

CHAPTER X.

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND.

What, it may be asked, were our biologists really
aiming at ? — for men like Professor Huxley do not
serve protoplasm for nought. They wanted a good
many things, some of them more righteous than
others, but all intelligible. Among the more lawful
of their desires was a craving after a monistic con¬
ception of the universe. We all desire this ; who can
turn his thoughts to these matters at all and not
instinctively lean towards the old conception of one
supreme and ultimate essence as the source from
which all things proceed and have proceeded, both
now and ever ? The most striking and apparently
most stable theory of the last quarter of a century has
been Sir William Grove’s theory of the conservation
of energy ; and yet wherein is there any substantial
difference between this recent outcome of modern
amateur, and hence most sincere, science — pointing as
it does to an imperishable, and as such unchangeable,
and as such, again, for ever unknowable underlying
substance the modes of which alone change — wherein,
except in mere verbal costume, does this differ from
the conclusions arrived at by the psalmist ?

152

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

u Of old,” lie exclaims, “ Thou hast laid the founda¬
tions of the earth ; and the heavens are the work of
Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure ;
yea, all of them shall wax old as doth a garment ; as
a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be
changed ; but Thou art the same, and Thy years have
no end.” *

I know not what theologians may think of this
passage, but from a scientific point of view it is unas¬
sailable. So again, “ Lord,” he exclaims, a Thou hast
searched me out and known me, Thou knowest my
down sitting and my uprising, Thou understandest my
thoughts long before. Thou art about my path and
about my bed, and spiest out all my ways. For lo !
there is not a word in my tongue but Thou, 0 Lord,
knowest it altogether. Whither, then, shall I go
from Thy Spirit ? Or whither shall I go, then, from
Thy presence ? If I climb up into heaven Thou art
there, if I go down into hell Thou art there also. If I
take the wings of the morning, and remain in the
uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy
hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me. If
I say, peradventure the darkness shall cover me, then
shall my night be turned into day. Yea, the darkness
is no darkness with Thee, but darkness and light to
Thee are both alike.” t

What convention or short cut can symbolise for us
the results of laboured and complicated chains of reason¬
ing or bring them more aptly and concisely home
to us than the one supplied long since by the word

* Ps. cii. 25-27. f Ps. cxxxix., Prayer-book version.

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND.

153

God ? What can approach more nearly to a render¬
ing of that which cannot be rendered — the idea of an
essence omnipresent in all things at all times every¬
where in sky and earth and sea ; ever changing, yet
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; the ineffable
contradiction in terms whose presence none can either
ever enter, or ever escape ? Or rather, what conven¬
tion would have been more apt if it had not been lost
sight of as a convention and come to be regarded as
an idea in actual correspondence with a more or less
knowable reality ? A convention was converted into a
fetish, and now that its worthlessness as a fetish is being
generally felt, its great value as a hieroglyph or con¬
vention is in danger of being lost sight of. No doubt
the psalmist was seeking for Sir William Grove’s con¬
ception, if haply he might feel after it and find it,
and assuredly it is not far from every one of us. But
the course of true philosophy never did run smooth ;
no sooner have we fairly grasped the conception of a
single eternal and for ever unknowable underlying
substance, than we are faced by mind and matter.
Long-standing ideas and current language alike lead
us to see these as distinct things — mind being still
commonly regarded as something that acts on body
from without as the wind blows upon a leaf, and as
no less an actual entity than the body. Neither body
nor mind seems less essential to our existence than the
other ; not only do we feel this as regards our own exis¬
tence, but we feel it also as pervading the whole world
of life ; everywhere we see body and mind working
together towards results that must be ascribed equally

154

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

to botli ; but they are two, not one ; if, then, we are
to have our monistic conception, it would seem as
though one of these must yield to the other ; which,
therefore, is it to be ?

This is a very old question. Some, from time
immemorial, have tried to get rid of matter by reduc¬
ing it to a mere concept of the mind, and their
followers have arrived at conclusions that may be
logically irrefragable, but are as far removed from
common sense as they are in accord with logic ; at
any rate they have failed to satisfy, and matter is
no nearer being got rid of now than it was when
the discussion first began. Others, again, have tried
materialism, have declared the causative action of
both thought and feeling to be deceptive, and posit
matter obeying fixed laws of which thought and feel¬
ing must be admitted as concomitants, but with which
they have no causal connection. The same thing has
happened to these men as to their opponents ; they
made out an excellent case on paper, but thought and
feeling still remain the mainsprings of action that
they have been always held to be. We still say, “ I
gave him £$ because I felt pleased with him, and
thought he would like it ; ” or, “I knocked him down
because I felt angry, and thought I would teach him
better manners.” Omnipresent life and mind with
appearances of brute non-livingness — which appear¬
ances are deceptive ; this is one view. Omnipresent
non-livingness or mechanism with appearances as
though the mechanism were guided and controlled
by thought — which appearances are deceptive ; this

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND.

155

is the other. Between these two views the slaves of
logic have oscillated for centuries, and to all appear¬
ance will continue to oscillate for centuries more.

People who think — as against those who feel and
act — want hard and fast lines — without which, indeed,
they cannot think at all ; these lines are as it were
steps cut on a slope of ice without which there would
be no descending it. When we have begun to travel
the downward path of thought, we ask ourselves ques¬
tions about life and death, ego and non ego, object and
subject, necessity and free will, and other kindred
subjects. We want to know where we are, and in
the hope of simplifying matters, strip, as it were, each
subject to the skin, and finding that even this has not
freed it from all extraneous matter, flay it alive in the
hope that if w^e grub down deep enough we shall come
upon it in its pure unalloyed state free from all incon¬
venient complication through intermixture with any¬
thing alien to itself. Then, indeed, we can docket it,
and pigeon-hole it for what it is ; but what can we do
with it till we have got it pure ? We want to account
for things, which means that we want to know to which
of the various accounts opened in our mental ledger
we ought to carry them — and how can we do this if
we admit a phenomenon to be neither one thing nor
the other, but to belong to half-a-dozen different
accounts in proportions which often cannot even
approximately be determined ? If we are to keep
accounts we must keep them in reasonable compass ;
and if keeping them within reasonable compass
involves something of a Procrustean arrangement, we

156

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

may regret it, but cannot help it ; having set up as
thinkers we have got to think, and must adhere to the
only conditions under which thought is possible ; life,
therefore, must be life, all life, and nothing but life,
and so with death, free will, necessity, design, and
everything else. This, at least, is how philosophers
must think concerning them in theory ; in practice,
however, not even John Stuart Mill himself could
eliminate all taint of its opposite from any one of these
things, any more than Lady Macbeth could clear her
hand of blood ; indeed, the more nearly we think we have
succeeded the more certain are we to find ourselves
ere long mocked and baffled ; and this, I take it, is
what our biologists began in the autumn of 1879 to
discover had happened to themselves.

For some years they had been trying to get rid of
feeling, consciousness, and mind generally, from active
participation in the evolution of the universe. They
admitted, indeed, that feeling and consciousness attend
the working of the world’s gear, as noise attends the
working of a steam-engine, but they would not allow
that consciousness produced more effect in the working
of the world than noise on that of the steam-engine.
Feeling and noise were alike accidental unessential
adjuncts and nothing more. Incredible as it may
seem to those who are happy enough not to know that
this attempt is an old one, they were trying to reduce
the world to the level of a piece of unerring though
sentient mechanism. Men and animals must be
allowed to feel and even to reflect ; this much must
be conceded, but granted that they do, still (so, at

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND.

157

least, it was contended) it has no effect upon the result ;
it does not matter as far as this is concerned whether
they feel and think or not ; everything would go on
exactly as it does and always has done, though neither
man nor beast knew nor felt anything at all. It is
only by maintaining things like this that people will
get pensions out of the British public.

Some such position as this is a sine qud non for
the Neo-Darwinistic doctrine of natural selection,
which, as Yon Hartmann justly observes, involves
an essentially mechanical mindless conception of the
universe ; to natural selection’s door, therefore, the
blame of the whole movement in favour of mechanism
must be justly laid. It was natural that those who
had been foremost in preaching mindless designless
luck as the main means of organic modification, should
lend themselves with alacrity to the task of getting
rid of thought and feeling from all share in the direc¬
tion and governance of the world. Professor. Huxley,
as usual, was among the foremost in this good work,
and whether influenced by Hobbes, or Descartes, or
Mr. Spalding, or even by the machine chapters in
“ Erewhon ” which were still recent, I do not know, led
off with his article u On the hypothesis that animals
are automata ” (which it may be observed is the exact
converse of the hypothesis that automata are animated)
in the Fortnightly Rcvieiu for November 1874. Pro¬
fessor Huxley did not say outright that men and
women were just as living and just as dead as their
own watches, but this was what his article came to in
substance. The conclusion arrived at was that animals

i5»

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

were automata ; true, they were probably sentient, still
they were automata pure and simple, mere sentient
pieces of exceedingly elaborate clockwork, and nothing
more.

a Professor Huxley,” says Mr. Romanes, in his
Rede Lecture for 1885,“' “ argues by way of perfectly
logical deduction from this statement, that thought and
feeling have nothing to do with determining action ;
they are merely the bye-products of cerebration, or,
as he expresses it, the indices of changes which are
going on in the brain. Under this view we are all
what he terms conscious automata, or machines which
happen, as it were by chance, to be conscious of some
of their own movements. But the consciousness is
altogether adventitious, and bears the same ineffectual
relation to the activity of the brain as a steam whistle
bears to the activity of a locomotive, or the striking
of a clock to the time-keeping adjustments of the
clockwork. Here, again, we meet with an echo of
Hobbes, who opens his work on the commonwealth
with these words : —

“ ‘ Nature, the art whereby God hath made and
governs the world, is by the art of man, as in many other
things, in this also imitated, that it can make an artifi¬
cial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the
beginning whereof is in the principal part within ; why
may we not say that all automata (engines that move
themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch)
have an artificial life ? For what is the heart but a
spring , and the nerves but so many strings ; and the

* Contemporary Review , August 1885, p. 84.

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND.

159

joints but so many wheels giving motion to tlie whole
body, such as was intended by the artificer ? ’

“ Now this theory of conscious automatism is not
merely a legitimate outcome of the theory that nervous
changes are the causes of mental changes, but it is
logically the only possible outcome. Nor do I see any
way in which this theory can be fought on grounds or
physiology.”

In passing, I may say the theory that living beings
are conscious machines, can be fought just as much
and just as little as the theory that machines are un¬
conscious living beings ; everything that goes to prove
either of these propositions goes just as well to prove
the other also. But I have perhaps already said as
much as is necessary on this head ; the main point
with which I am concerned is the fact that Professor
Huxley was trying to expel consciousness and sentience
from any causative action in the working of the
universe. In the following month appeared the late
Professor Clifford’s hardly less outspoken article, “ Body
and Mind,” to the same effect, also in the Fortnightly
Review , then edited by Mr. John Morley. Perhaps
this view attained its frankest expression in an article
by the late Mr. Spalding, which appeared in Nature ,
August 2, 1877; the following extracts will show
that Mr. Spalding must be credited with not playing
fast and loose with his own conclusions, and knew both
how to think a thing out to its extreme consequences,
and how to put those consequences clearly before his
readers. Mr. Spalding said : —

“ Against Mr. Lewes’s proposition that the move-

i6o

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

merits of living beings are prompted and guided by
feeling, I urged that . . . the amount and direction
of every nervous discharge must depend solely on
physical conditions. And I contended that to see this
clearly is to see that when we speak of movement
being guided by feeling, we use the language of a less
advanced stage of enlightenment. This view has since
occupied a good deal of attention. Under the name of
automatism it has been advocated by Professor Huxley,
and with firmer logic by Professor Clifford. ... In
the minds of our savage ancestors feeling was the source
of all movement. . . . Using the word feeling in its
ordinary sense, ... we assert not only that no evidence
can be given that feeling ever does guide or prompt action ,
but that the process of its doing so is inconceivable.
(Italics mine.) How can we picture to ourselves a
state of consciousness putting in motion any particle
of matter, large or small ? Puss, while dozing before
the fire, hears a light rustle in the corner, and darts
towards the spot. What has happened ? Certain
sound-waves have reached the ear, a series of physical
changes have taken place within the organism, special
groups of muscles have been called into play, and the
body of the cat has changed its position on the floor.
Is it asserted that this chain of physical changes is not
at all points complete and sufficient in itself?”

I have been led to turn to this article of Mr.
Spalding’s by Mr. Stewart Duncan, who, in his
“ Conscious Matter,” quotes the latter part of the
foregoing extract. Mr. Duncan goes on to quote

* London, David Bogue, 1881, p. 60.

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND. 161

.passages from Professor Tyndall’s utterances of about
the same date which show that he too took much the
same line — namely, that there is uo causative con¬
nection between mental and physical processes; from
this it is obvious he must have supposed that physical
processes would go on just as well if there were no
accompaniment of feeling and consciousness at all.

I have said enough to show that in the decade,
roughly, between 1870 and 1880 the set of opinion
among our leading biologists was strongly against
mind, as having in any way influenced the develop¬
ment of animal and vegetable life, and it is not likely
to be denied that the prominence which the mindless
theory of natural selection had assumed in men’s
thoughts since i860 was one of the chief reasons, if
not the chief, for the turn opinion was taking. Our
leading biologists had staked so heavily upon natural
selection from among fortuitous variations that they
would have been more than human if they had not
caught at everything that seemed to give it colour and
support. It was while this mechanical fit was upon
them, and in the closest connection with it, that the
protoplasm boom developed. It was doubtless felt
that if the public could be got to dislodge life, con¬
sciousness, and mind from any considerable part of
the body, it would be no hard matter to dislodge it,
presently, from the remainder ; on this the deceptive¬
ness of mind as a causative agent, and the sufficiency
of a purely automatic conception of the universe, as of
something that will work if a penny be dropped into
the box, would be proved to demonstration. It would

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

162

be proved from the side of mind by considerations
derivable from automatic and unconscious action where
mind ex hypothesi was not, but where action went on
as well or better without it than with it ; it would be
proved from the side of body by what they would
doubtless call the u most careful and exhaustive ”
examination of the body itself by the aid of appliances
more ample than had ever before been within the
reach of man.

This was all very well, but for its success one thing
was a sine qud non — I mean the dislodgment must
be thorough ; the key must be got clean of even the
smallest trace of blood, for unless this could be done
all the argument went to the profit not of the me¬
chanism, with which, for some reason or other, they
were so much enamoured, but of the soul and design,
the ideas which of all others were most distasteful to
them. They shut their eyes to this for a long time,
but in the end appear to have seen that if they were
in search of an absolute living and absolute non-living,
the path along which they were travelling would never
lead them to it. They were driving life up into a
corner, but they were not eliminating it, and, moreover,
at the very moment of their thinking they had hedged
it in and could throw their salt upon it, it flew mock¬
ingly over their heads and perched upon the place of
all others where they were most scandalised to see it
— I mean upon machines in use. So they retired
sulkily to their tents baffled but not ashamed.

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND.

163

Some months subsequent to the completion of the
foregoing chapter, and indeed just as this book is on
the point of leaving my hands, there appears in Nature *
a letter from the Duke of Argyll, which shows that he
too is impressed with the conviction expressed above
— I mean that the real object our men of science have
lately had in view has been the getting rid of mind from
among the causes of evolution. The Duke says : —

u The violence with which false interpretations were
put upon this theory (natural selection) and a function
was assigned to it which it could never fulfil, will
some day be recognised as one of the least creditable
episodes in the history of science. With a curious
perversity it was the weakest elements in the theory
which were seized upon as the most valuable, particu¬
larly the part assigned to blind chance in the occur¬
rence of variations. This was valued not for its
scientific truth, — for it could pretend to none, — but
because of its assumed bearing upon another field ot
thought and the weapon it afforded for expelling
mind from the causes of evolution.”

The Duke, speaking of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s two
articles in the Nineteenth Century for April and May
1886, to which I have already called attention,
continues : —

“ In these two articles we have for the first
time an avowed and definite declaration against
some of the leading ideas on which the mechanical
philosophy depends ; and yet the caution, and almost
timidity, with which a man so eminent approaches the

* August 12, 18S6.

164

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

announcement of conclusions of the most self-ev
truth is a most curious proof of the reign of terror
which has come to be established.”

Against this I must protest ; the Duke cannot seri¬
ously maintain that the main scope and purpose of Mr.
Herbert Spencer's articles is new. Their substance has
been before us in Mr. Spencer’s own writings for some
two and twenty years, in the course of which Mr. Spencer
has been followed by Professor Mivart, the Key. J. J.
Murphy, the Duke of Argyll himself, and many other
writers of less note. When the Duke talks about the
establishment of a scientific reign of terror, I confess
I regard such an exaggeration with something like
impatience. Any one who has known his own mind
and has had the courage of his opinions has been able
to say whatever he wanted to say with as little let or
hindrance during the last twenty years, as during any
other period in the history of literature. Of course,
if a man will keep blurting out unpopular truths with¬
out considering whose toes he may or may not be
treading on, he will make enemies some of whom will
doubtless be able to give effect to their displeasure ;
but that is part of the game. It is hardly possible
for any one to oppose the fallacy involved in the
Charles-Darwinian theory of natural selection more
persistently and unsparingly than I have done my¬
self from the year 1877 onwards ; naturally I have
at times been very angrily attacked in consequence,
and as a matter of business have made myself as un¬
pleasant as I could in my rejoinders, but I cannot
remember anything having been ever attempted against

THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND .

165

me which could cause fear in any ordinarily constituted
person. If, tlien, the Duke of Argyll is right in saying
that Mr. Spencer has shown a caution almost amount¬
ing to timidity in attacking Mr. Darwin’s theory,
either Mr. Spencer must be a singularly timid person,
or there must be some cause for his timidity which is
not immediately obvious. If terror reigns anywhere
among scientific men, I should say it reigned
among those who have staked imprudently on Mr.
Darwin’s reputation as a philosopher. I may add that
the discovery of the Duke’s impression that there
exists a scientific reign of terror, explains a good deal
in his writings which it has not been easy to under¬
stand hitherto.

As regards the theory of natural selection, the Duke
says : —

“ From the first discussions which arose on this
subject, I have ventured to maintain that . . . the
phrase 4 natural selection ’ represented no true physi¬
cal cause, still less the complete set of causes
requisite to account for the orderly procession of or¬
ganic forms in Nature ; that in so far as it assumed
variations to arise by accident it was not only essen¬
tially faulty and incomplete, but fundamentally
erroneous ; in short, that its only value lay in the
convenience with which it groups under one form of
words, highly charged with metaphor, an immense
variety of causes, some purely mental, some purely
vital, and others purely physical or mechanical.”

( 1 66 )

CHAPTER XI.

THE WAY OF ESCAPE.

To sum up the conclusions hitherto arrived at. Our
philosophers have made the mistake of forgetting that
they cannot carry the rough and ready language of
common sense into precincts within which politeness
and philosophy are supreme. Common sense sees life
and death as distinct states having nothing in common,
and hence in all respects the antitheses of one another ;
so that, with common sense there should be no degrees
of livingness, but if a thing is alive at all it is as much
alive as the most living of us, and if dead at all it is
stone dead in every part of it. Our philosophers have
exercised too little consideration in retaining this view
of the matter. They say that an amoeba is as much
a living being as a man is, and do not allow that a
well-grown, highly educated man in robust health is
more living than an idiot cripple. They say he differs
from the cripple in many important respects, but not
in degree of livingness. Yet, as we have seen already,
even common sense by using the word “ dying ” admits
degrees of life ; that is to say, it admits a more and a
less ; those, then, for whom the superficial aspects of

THE WAY OF ESCAPE.

1 6 7

tilings are insufficient should surely find no difficulty
in admitting that the degrees are more numerous than
is dreamed of in the somewhat limited philosophy
which common sense alone knows. Livingness depends
on range of power, versatility, wealth of body and
mind — how often, indeed, do we not see people taking
a new lease of life when they have come into money
even at an advanced age ; it varies as these vary,
beginning with things that, though they have mind
enough for an outsider to swear by, can hardly be said
to have yet found it out themselves, and advancing to
those that know their own minds as fully as anything
in this world does so. The more a thing knows its
own mind the more living it becomes, for life viewed
both in the individual and in the general as the out¬
come of accumulated developments, is one long process
of specialising consciousness and sensation ; that is to
say, of getting to know one’s own mind more and more
fully upon a greater and greater variety of subjects. On
this I hope to touch more fully in another book ; in the
meantime I would repeat that the error of our philoso¬
phers consists in not having borne in mind that when
they quitted the ground on which common sense can
claim authority, they should have reconsidered every¬
thing that common sense had taught them.

The votaries of common sense make the same mis¬
take as philosophers do, but they make it in another
way. Philosophers try to make the language of com¬
mon sense serve for purposes of philosophy, forgetting
that they are in another world, in which another tongue
is current ; common sense people, on the other hand,

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

1 68

every now and tlien attempt to deal with matters alien
to the routine of daily life. The boundaries between
the two kingdoms being very badly defined, it is only
by giving them a wide berth and being so philosophical
as almost to deny that there is any either life or death
at all, or else so full of common sense as to refuse to
see one part of the body as less living than another,
that we can hope to steer clear of doubt, inconsistency,
and contradiction in terms in almost every other word
we utter. We cannot serve the God of philosophy
and the Mammon of common sense at one and the
same time, and yet it would almost seem as though
the making the best that can be made of both these
worlds were the whole duty of organism.

It is easy to understand how the error of philo¬
sophers arose, for, slaves of habit as we all are, we are
more especially slaves when the habit is one that has
not been found troublesome. There is no denying
that it saves trouble to have things either one thing
or the other, and indeed for all the common purposes
of life if a thing is either alive or dead the small
supplementary residue of the opposite state should be
neglected as too small to be observable. If it is good
to eat we have no difficulty in knowing when it is
dead enough to be eaten ; if not good to eat, but
valuable for its skin, we know when it is dead enough
to be skinned with impunity ; if it is a man, we know
when he has presented enough of the phenomena of
death to allow of our burying him and administering
his estate ; in fact, I cannot call to mind any case in
which the decision of the question whether man or

THE WAY OF ESCAPE.

169

beast is alive or dead is frequently found to be per¬
plexing; lienee we liave become so accustomed to
think there can be no admixture of the two states,
that we have found it almost impossible to avoid carry¬
ing this crude view of life and death into domains of
thought in which it has no application. There can be
no doubt that when accuracy is required we should
see life and death not as fundamentally opposed, but
as supplementary to one another, without either’s
being ever able to exclude the other altogether ; thus
we should indeed see some things as more living than
others, but we should see nothing as either unalloyedly
living or unalloyedly non-living. If a thing is living,
it is so living that it has one foot in the grave already ;
if dead, it is dead as a thing that has already re-entered
into the womb of Nature. And within the residue of
life that is in the dead there is an element of death;
and within this there is an element of life, and so ad
infinitum — again, as reflections in two mirrors that
face one another.

In brief, there is nothing in life of which there
are not germs, and, so to speak, harmonics in death,
and nothing in death of which germs and harmonics
may not be found in life. Each emphasizes what
the other passes over most lightly — each carries to
its extreme conceivable development that which in
the other is only sketched in by a faint suggestion —
but neither has any feature rigorously special to itself.
Granted that death is a greater new departure in an
organism’s life, than any since that congeries of births
and deaths to which the name embryonic stages is

170

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

commonly given, still it is a new departure of tlie
same essential character as any other — that is to say,
though there be much new there is much, not to say
more, old along with it. We shrink from it as from any
other change to the unknown, and also perhaps from
an instinctive sense that the fear of death is a sine q_ud
non for physical and moral progress, but the fear is
like all else in life, a substantial thing which, if its
foundations be dug about, is found to rest on a super¬
stitious basis.

Where, and on what principle, are the dividing
lines between living and non-living to be drawn ?
All attempts to draw them hitherto have ended in
deadlock and disaster ; of this M. Yianna De Lima, in
his “ Expose Sommaire des Theories transformistes de
Lamarck, Darwin, et Haeckel,'’ says that all attempts
to trace “ une licjne de demarcation nette et profonde
entre la matiere vivante et la matiere inerte” have
broken down.t “ II y a un reste de vie dans le
cadavre,” says Diderot, J speaking of the more gradual
decay of the body after an easy natural death, than
after a sudden and violent one ; and so Buffon begins
his first volume by saying that u we can descend, by
almost imperceptible degrees, from the most perfect
creature to the most formless matter — from the most
highly organised matter to the most entirely inorganic
substance.” §

Is the line to be so drawn as to admit any of the

* Paris, Delagrave, 1886. + Page 60.

t CEuvres completes, tom. ix. p. 422. Paris, Gamier frbres, 1875.
t § Hist. Nat., tom. i. p. 13, 1749, quoted Evol. Old and New, p. 108.

THE WAY OF ESCAPE. 171

non-living within the body ? If we answer cc yes,”
then, as we have seen, moiety after moiety is filched
from us, till we find ourselves left face to face with a
tenuous quasi immaterial vital principle or soul as
animating an alien body, with which it not only has
no essential underlying community of substance, but
with which it has no conceivable point in common to
render a union between the two possible, or give the
one a grip of any kind over the other ; in fact, the
doctrine of disembodied spirits, so instinctively rejected
by all who need be listened to, comes back as it
would seem, with a scientific imprimatur ; if, on the
other hand, we exclude the non-living from the body,
then what are we to do with nails that want cutting,
dying skin, or hair that is ready to fall off ? Are they
less living than brain ? Answer “ yes,” and degrees are
admitted, which we have already seen prove fatal ;
answer “ no,” and we must deny that one part of the
body is more vital than another — and this is refusing
to go as far even as common sense does ; answer that
these things are not very important, and we quit the
ground of equity and high philosophy on which we
have given ourselves such airs, and go back to common
sense as unjust judges that will hear those widows
only who importune us.

As with the non-living so also with the living.

o o

Are we to let it pass beyond the limits of the body,
and allow a certain temporary overflow of livingness
to ordain as it were machines in use ? Then death
will fare, if we once let life without the body, as life
fares if we once let death within it. It becomes

172

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

swallowed up in life, just as in tlie other case life was
swallowed up in death. Are we to confine it to the
body ? If so, to the whole body, or to parts ? And if
to parts, to what parts, and why ? The only way out
of the difficulty is to rehabilitate contradiction in
terms, and say that everything is both alive and dead
at one and the same time — some things being much
living and little dead, and others, again, much dead
and little living. Having done this we have only got
to settle what a thing is — when a thing is a thing
pure and simple, and when it is only a congeries of
things — and we shall doubtless then live very happily
and very philosophically ever afterwards.

But here another difficulty faces us. Common
sense does indeed know what is meant by a “ thing ”
or “ an individual,” but philosophy cannot settle either
of these two points. Professor Mivart made the
question “ What is a thing ? ” the subject of an article
in one of our leading magazines only a very few years
ago. He asked, but he did not answer. And so
Professor Moseley was reported ( Times , January 1 6,
1885) as having said that it was “almost impossible”
to say what an individual was. Surely if it is only
“ almost ” impossible for philosophy to determine this,
Professor Moseley should have at any rate tried to do
it ; if, however, he had tried and failed, which from
my own experience I should think most likely, he
might have spared his “ almost.” “ Almost ” is a
very dangerous word. I once heard a man say that
an escape he had had from drowning was “ almost ”
providential. The difficulty about defining an indi-

THE WAY OF ESCAPE.

173

vidual arises from tlie fact that we may look at
“ almost ” everything from two different points of
view. If we are in a common-sense humour for
simplying things, treating them broadly, and empha¬
sizing resemblances rather than differences, we can
find excellent reasons for ignoring recognised lines of
demarcation, calling everything by a new name, and
unifying np till we have united the two most distant
stars in heaven as meeting and being linked together
in the eyes and souls of men ; if we are in this humour
individuality after individuality disappears, and ere
long, if we are consistent, nothing will remain but one
universal whole, one true and only atom from which
alone nothing can be cut off and thrown away on to
something else ; if, on the other hand, we are in a
subtle philosophically accurate humour for straining at
gnats and emphasizing differences rather than resem¬
blances, we can draw distinctions, and give reasons
for subdividing and subdividing, till, unless we violate
what we choose to call our consistency somewhere, we
shall find ourselves with as many names as atoms
and possible combinations and permutations of atoms.
The lines we draw, the moments we choose for cutting
this or that off at this or that place, and thenceforth
the dubbing it by another name, are as arbitrary as
the moments chosen by a South-Eastern Railway porter
for leaving off beating doormats ; in each case doubt¬
less there is an approximate equity, but it is of a very
rough and ready kind.

What else, however, can we do ? We can only
escape the Scylla of calling everything by one name,

174

LUCK , OR CUNNING 1

and recognising no individual existences of any kind,
by falling into the Cliarybdis of having a name for
everything, or by some piece of intellectual sharp
practice like that of the shrewd but unprincipled
Ulysses. If we were consistent honourable gentle¬
men, into Cliarybdis or on to Scylla we should go like
lambs ; every subterfuge by the help of which we
escape our difficulty is but an arbitrary high-handed
act of classification that turns a deaf ear to everything
not robust enough to hold its own ; nevertheless even
the most scrupulous of philosophers pockets his con¬
sistency at a pinch, and refuses to let the native hue
of resolution be sickbed o’er with the pale cast of
thought, nor yet fobbed by the rusty curb of logic.
He is right, for assuredly the poor intellectual abuses
of the time want countenancing now as much as ever,
but so far as he countenances them, he should bear in
mind that he is returning to the ground of common
sense, and should not therefore hold himself too stiffly
in the matter of logic.

As with life and death so with design and absence
of design or luck. So also with union and disunion.
There is never either absolute design rigorously per¬
vading every detail, nor yet absolute absence of design
pervading any detail rigorously, so, as between sub¬
stances, there is neither absolute union and homoge¬
neity, nor absolute disunion and heterogeneity ; there
is always a little place left for repentance ; that is to
say, in theory we should admit that both design and
chance, however well defined, each have an aroma, as
it were, of the other. Who can think of a case in

THE WAY OF ESCAPE A

175

which, his own design — about which he should know
more than any other, and from which, indeed, all his
ideas of design are derived — was so complete that
there was no chance in any part of it ? Who, again,
can bring forward a case even of the purest chance
or good luck into which no element of design has
entered directly or indirectly at any juncture ? This,
nevertheless, does not involve our being unable ever to
ascribe a result baldly either to luck or cunning. In
some cases a decided preponderance of the action,
whether seen as a whole or looked at in detail, is
recognised at once as due to design, purpose, fore¬
thought, skill, and effort, and then we properly disre¬
gard the undesigned element ; in others the details
cannot without violence be connected with design,
however much the position which rendered the main
action possible may involve design — as, for example,
there is no design in the way in which individual
pieces of coal may hit one another when shot out of
a sack, but there may be design in the sack’s being
brought to the particular place where it is emptied ;
in others design may be so hard to find that we
rightly deny its existence, nevertheless in each case
there will be an element of the opposite, and the
residuary element would, if seen through a mental
microscope, be found to contain a residuary element
of its opposite, and this again of its opposite, and so
on act infinitum , as with mirrors standing face to face.
This having ’been explained, and it being understood
that when we speak of design in organism we do so
with a mental reserve of exceptis excipiendis, there

176

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

should be no hesitation in holding the various modifi¬
cations of plants and animals to be in such pre¬
ponderating measure due to f auction, that design,
which underlies function, is the fittest idea with which
to connect them in our minds.

We will now proceed to inquire how Mr. Darwin
came to substitute, or try to substitute, the survival
of the luckiest fittest, for the survival of the most
cunning fittest, as held by Erasmus Darwin and
Lamarck ; or more briefly, how he came to substitute
luck for cunning.

( 177 )

CHAPTER XII.

why darwin’s variations were accidental.

Some may perhaps deny that Mr. Darwin did this,
and say he laid so much stress on use and disuse as
virtually to make function his main factor of evolu¬
tion. If, indeed, we confine ourselves to isolated
passages, we shall find little difficulty in making out
a strong case to this effect. Certainly most people
believe this to be Mr. Darwin’s doctrine, and con¬
sidering how long and fully he had the ear of the
public, it is not likely they would think thus if Mr.
Darwin had willed otherwise, nor could he have induced
them to think as they do if he had not said a good
deal that was capable of the construction so commonly
put upon it ; but it is hardly necessary, when
addressing biologists, to insist on the fact that Mr.
Darwin’s distinctive doctrine is the denial of the
comparative importance of function, or use and disuse,
as a purveyor of variations, — with some, but not very
considerable, exceptions, chiefly in the cases of domes¬
ticated animals.

He did not, however, make his distinctive feature

as distinct as he should have done. Sometimes he

178

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

said one tiling, and sometimes tlie directly opposite.
Sometimes, for example, tlie conditions of existence
“ included natural selection ” or the fact that the best
adapted to their surroundings live longest and leave
most offspring ; * sometimes “ the principle of natural
selection ” “ fully embraced ” u the expression of con¬
ditions of existence.” t It would not be easy to find
more unsatisfactory writing than this is, nor any more
clearly indicating a mind ill at ease with itself.
Sometimes “ ants work by inherited instincts and in¬
herited tools ; ” J sometimes, again, it is surprising
that the case of ants working by inherited instincts
has not been brought as a demonstrative argument
“ against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit ,
as advanced by Lamarck.” § Sometimes the wing¬
lessness of beetles inhabiting ocean islands is “ mainly
due to natural selection," || and though we might be
tempted to ascribe the rudimentary condition of the
wing to disuse, we are on no account to do so — though
disuse was probably to some extent “ combined with ”
natural selection ; at other times “it is probable that
disuse has been the main means of rendering the wings
of beetles living on small exposed islands” rudimentary. II
We may remark in passing that if disuse, as Mr.
Darwin admits on this occasion, is the main agent in
rendering an organ rudimentary, use should have been
the main agent in rendering it the opposite of rudi¬
mentary — that is to say, in briuging about its

* Origin of Species, ed. 6, p. 107.

+ Ibid., ed. 6, p. 233.

|| Ibid., ed. 6, p. 109.

t Ibid., ed. 6, p. 166.
§ Ibid.

IT Ibid., ed. 6, p. 401.

DARWIN'S VARIATIONS.

179

development. The ostensible raison d'etre , however,
of the “ Origin of Species ” is to maintain that this
is not the case.

There is hardly an opinion on the subject of descent
with modification which does not find support in some
one passage or another of the “ Origin of Species.”
If it were desired to show that there is no substantial
difference between the doctrine of Erasmus Darwin and
that of his grandson, it would be easy to make out
a good case for this, in spite of Mr. Darwin’s calling
his grandfather’s views “ erroneous,” in the historical
sketch prefixed to the later editions of the “ Origin of
Species.” Passing over the passage already quoted
on p. 62 of this book, in which Mr. Darwin declares
“ habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary ” — a sen¬
tence, by the way, than which none can be either
more unfalteringly Lamarckian or less tainted with the
vices of Mr. Darwin’s later style — passing this over
as having been written some twenty years before
the “ Origin of Species ” — the last paragraph of the
“ Origin of Species ” itself is purely Lamarckian and
Erasmus-Darwinian. It declares the laws in accordance
with which organic forms assumed their present shape
to be — tc Growth with reproduction ; Variability from
the indirect and direct action of the external conditions
of life and from use and disuse, &c.” Wherein does
this differ from the confession of faith made by
Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck ? Where are the
accidental fortuitous, spontaneous variations now ?
And if they are not found important enough to demand

* Origin of Species, ed. I, p. 490.

i8o

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

mention in this peroration and stretto , as it were, of
the whole matter, in which special prominence should
be given to the special feature of the work, where
ought they to be made important ?

Mr. Darwin immediately goes on : “ A ratio of exist¬
ence so high as to lead to a struggle for life, and as a
consequence to natural selection, entailing divergence
of character and the extinction of less improved
forms ; ” so that natural selection turns up after all.
Yes — in the letters that compose it, but not in the
spirit ; not in the special sense up to this time
attached to it in the “ Origin of Species/’ The expres¬
sion as used here is one with which Erasmus Darwin
would have found little fault, for it means not as else¬
where in Mr. Darwin’s book and on his title-page the
preservation of “ favoured ” or lucky varieties, but the
preservation of varieties that have come to be varieties
through the causes assigned in the preceding two
or three lines of Mr. Darwin’s sentence ; and these
are mainly functional or Erasmus-Darwinian ; for the
indirect action of the conditions of life is mainly
functional, and the direct action is admitted on all
hands to be but small.

It now appears more plainly, as insisted upon on
an earlier page, that there is not one natural selection
and one survival of the fittest, but two, inasmuch as
there are two classes of variations from which nature
(supposing no exception taken to her personification)
can select. The bottles have the same labels, and they
are of the same colour, but the one holds brandy, and
the other toast and water. Nature can, by a figure

DARWIN'S VARIATIONS.

1 8 1

of speech, be said to select from variations that are
mainly functional or from variations that are mainly
accidental ; in the first case she will eventually get
an accumulation of variation, and widely different types
will come into existence ; in the second, the variations
will not occur with sufficient steadiness for accumula¬
tion to be possible. In the body of Mr. Darwin’s
book the variations are supposed to be mainly due to
accident, and function, though not denied all efficacy,
is declared to be the greatly subordinate factor ; natu¬
ral selection, therefore, has been hitherto throughout
tantamount to luck ; in the peroration the position
is reversed in toto ; the selection is now made from
variations into which luck has entered so little that
it may be neglected, the greatly preponderating
factor being function ; here, then, natural selection is
tantamount to cunning. We are such slaves of words
that, seeing the words “ natural selection ” employed —
and forgetting that the results ensuing on natural
selection will depend entirely on what it is that is
selected from, so that the gist of the matter lies in
this and not in the words “ natural selection ” — it
escaped us that a change of front had been made, and
a conclusion entirely alien to the tenor of the whole
book smuggled into the last paragraph as the one
which it had been written to support ; the book
preached luck, the peroration cunning.

And there can be no doubt Mr. Darwin intended
that the change of front should escape us ; for it
cannot be believed that he did not perfectly well know
what he had done. Mr. Darwin edited and re-edited

lS2

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

with such minuteness of revision that it may be sal* .
no detail escaped him provided it was small enough ;
it is incredible that he should have allowed this para¬
graph to remain from first to last unchanged (except
for the introduction of the words “by the Creator/’
which are wanting in the first edition) if they did not
convey the conception he most wished his readers to
retain. Even if in his first edition he had failed to
see that he was abandoning in his last paragraph all
that it had been his ostensible object most especially
to support in the body of his book, he must have
become aware of it long before he revised the “ Origin
of Species ” for the last time ; still he never altered
it, and never put us on our guard.

It was not Mr. Darwin’s manner to put his reader
on his guard ; we might as well expect Mr. Gladstone
to put us on our guard about the Irish land bills. Caveat
lector seems to have been his motto. Mr. Spencer,
in the articles already referred to, is at pains to show
that Mr. Darwin’s opinions in later life underwent a
change in the direction of laying greater stress on
functionally produced modifications, and points out
that in the sixth edition of the “ Origin of Species ”
Mr. Darwin says, “ I think there can be no doubt that
use in our domestic animals has strengthened and
enlarged certain parts, and disuse diminished them ; ”
whereas in his first edition he said, “ I think there can be
little doubt ” of this. Mr. Spencer also quotes a passage
from “ The Descent of Man,” in which Mr. Darwin
said that even in the first edition of the “ Origin of
Species ” he had attributed great effect to function, as

DARWIN’S VARIATIONS.

i S3

though in tlie later ones lie had attributed still more ;
but if there was any considerable change of position,
it should not have been left to be toilsomely collected
by collation of editions, and comparison of passages
far removed from one another in other books. If his
mind had undergone the modification supposed by Mr.
Spencer, Mr. Darwin should have said so in a pro¬
minent passage of some later edition of the “ Origin
of Species.” He should have said — “ In my earlier
editions I underrated, as now seems probable, the
effect of use and disuse as purveyors of the slight
successive modifications whose accumulation in the
ordinary course of things results in specific difference,
and I laid too much stress on the accumulation of
merely accidental variations ; ” having said this, he
should have summarised the reasons that had made
him change his mind, and given a list of the most
important cases in which he had seen fit to alter what
he had originally written. If Mr. Darwin had dealt
thus with us we should have readily condoned all the
mistakes he would have been at all likely to have
made, for we should have known him as one who was
trying to help us, tidy us up, keep us straight, and
enable us to use our judgments to the best advan¬
tage. The public will forgive many errors alike of
taste and judgment, where it feels that a writer per¬
sistently desires this.

I can only remember a couple of sentences in
the later editions of the “ Origin of Species ” in
which Mr. Darwin directly admits a change of opinion
as regards the main causes of organic modification.

I S4

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

How shuffling the first of these is I have already
shown in “ Life and Habit,” p. 260, and in “Evolu¬
tion Old and New,” p. 3 59 ; I need not, therefore, say
more here, especially as there has been no rejoinder
to what I then said. Curiously enough the sentence
does not bear out Mr. Spencer’s contention that Mr.
Darwin in his later years leaned more decidedly towards
functionally produced modifications, for it runs : w —
“ In the earlier editions of this work I underrated, as
now seems probable, the frequency and importance of
modifications due,” not, as Mr. Spencer would have
us believe, to use and disuse, but “ to spontaneous
variability,” by which can only be intended, “ to varia¬
tions in no way connected with use and disuse,” as
not being assignable to any known cause of general
application, and referable as far as we are concerned
to accident only ; so that he gives the natural survival
of the luckiest, which is indeed his distinctive feature,
if it deserve to be called a feature at all, greater pro¬
minence than ever. Nevertheless there is no change
in his concluding paragraph, which still remains an
embodiment of the views of Erasmus Darwin and
Lamarck.

The other passage is on p. 421 of the edition of
1876. It stands: — “I have now recapitulated the
facts and considerations which have thoroughly ” (why
“ thoroughly ” ?) “ convinced me that species have been
modified during a long course of descent. This has
been effected chiefly through the natural selection of
numerous, successive, slight, favourable variations ;

* * Origin of Species, ed. 6, 1S76, p. 17 1.

DARWIN'S VARIATIONS.

185

aided in an important manner by the inherited effects
of the use and disuse of parts ; and in an unimportant
manner, that is, in relation to adaptive structures,
whether past or present, by the direct action of
external conditions, and by variations which seem to
us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously. It appears
that I formerly underrated the frequency and value of
these latter forms of variation as leading to permanent
modifications of structure independently of natural
selection.”

Here, again, it is not use and disuse which Mr.
Darwin declares himself to have undervalued, but
spontaneous variations. The sentence just given is
one of the most confusing I ever read even in the
works of Mr. Darwin. It is the essence of his theory
that the “ numerous successive, slight, favourable
variations,” above referred to, should be fortuitous,
accidental, spontaneous ; it is evident, moreover, that
they are intended in this passage to be accidental or
spontaneous, although neither of these words is em¬
ployed, inasmuch as use and disuse and the action of
the conditions of existence, whether direct or indirect,
are mentioned specially as separate causes which purvey
only the minor part of the variations from among
which nature selects. The words “ that is, in relation
to adaptive forms ” should be omitted, as surplusage
that draws the reader’s attention from the point at
issue ; the sentence really amounts to this — that
modification has been effected chiefly through selection
in the ordinary course of nature from among spontane¬
ous variations , aided in an unimportant manner by

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

1 86

variations which qua us arc spontaneous. Nevertheless,
though these spontaneous variations are still so trifling
in effect that they only aid spontaneous variations in an
unimportant manner, in his earlier editions Mr. Darwin
thought them still less important than he does now.

This comes of tinkering. We do not know whether
we are on our heads or our heels. We catch ourselves
repeating “ important,” “ unimportant,” “ unimportant,”
“important,” like the King when addressing the jury
in “ Alice in Wonderland ; ” and yet this is the book of
which Mr. Grant Allen * says that it is “ one of the
greatest, the most learned, the most lucid, the most
logical, the most crushing, the most conclusive, that
the world had ever seen. Step by step, and principle
by principle, it proved every point in its progress
triumphantly before it went on to the next. So vast an
array of facts so thoroughly in hand had never before
been mustered and marshalled in favour of any biological
theory.” The book and the eulogy are well mated.

I see that in the paragraph following on the one
just quoted, Mr. Allen says, that “ to the world at
large Darwinism and evolution became at once
synonymous terms. Certainly it was no fault of Mr.
Darwin’s if they did not, but I will add more on this
head presently ; for the moment, returning to Mr.
Darwin, it is hardly credible, but it is nevertheless
true, that Mr. Darwin begins the paragraph next
following on the one on which I have just reflected so
severely, with the words, “ It can hardly be supposed
that a false theory would explain in so satisfactory a

* Charles Darwin, p. 1 1 3.

DARWIN'S VARIATIONS.

187

manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several
large classes of facts above specified. ” If Mr. Darwin
found the large classes of facts “ satisfactorily ” explained
by the survival of the luckiest irrespectively of the
cunning which enabled them to turn their luck to
account, he must have been easily satisfied. Perhaps
he was in the same frame of mind as when he said *
that a even an imperfect answer ” “ would be satisfac¬
tory,” but surely this is being thankful for small mercies.

On the following page Mr. Darwin says : — “ Although
I am fully ” (why “ fully ” ?) “ convinced of the truth
of the views given in this volume under the form of
an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experi¬
enced naturalists,” &c. I have not quoted the whole of
Mr. Darwin’s sentence, but it implies that any experi¬
enced naturalist who remained unconvinced was an
old-fashioned, prejudiced person. I confess that this
is what I rather feel about the experienced naturalists
who differ in only too great numbers from myself, but
I did not expect to find so much of the old Adam
remaining in Mr. Darwin ; I did not expect to find him
support me in the belief that naturalists are made of
much the same stuff as other people, and, if they are
wise, will look upon new theories with distrust until they
find them becoming generally accepted. I am not sure
that Mr. Darwin is not just a little bit flippant here.

Sometimes I ask myself whether it is possible that,
not being convinced, I may be an experienced naturalist
after all ; at other times, when I read Mr. Darwin’s
works and those of his eulogists, I wonder whether

* Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii. p. 367, ed. 1875.

iSS

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

there is not some other Mr. Darwin, some other
“ Origin of Species," some other Professors Huxley,
Tyndal, and Ray Lankester, and whether in each case
some malicious fiend has not palmed off a counterfeit
upon me that differs toto coelo from the original. I felt
exactly the same when I read Goethe’s “ Wilhelm
Meister; ” I could not believe my eyes, which nevertheless
told me that the dull diseased trash I was so toilsomely
reading was a work which was commonly held to be
one of the great literary masterpieces of the world. It
seemed to me that there must be some other Goethe
and some other Wilhelm Meister. Indeed I find my¬
self so depressingly out of harmony with the prevailing
not opinion only, but spirit — if, indeed, the Huxleys,
Tyndals, Miss Buckleys, Ray Lankesters, and Romanes’s
express the prevailing spirit as accurately as they
appear to do — that at times I find it difficult to believe
I am not the victim of hallucination ; nevertheless I
know that either every canon, whether of criticism or
honourable conduct, which I have learned to respect
is an impudent swindle, suitable for the cloister only,
and having no force or application in the outside
world ; or else that Mr. Darwin and his supporters are
misleading the public to the full as much as the
theologians of whom they speak at times so dis¬
approvingly. They sin, moreover, with incomparably
less excuse. Right as they doubtless are in much,
and much as we doubtless owe them (so we owe much
also to the theologians, and they also are right in
much), they are giving way to a temper which cannot
be indulged with impunity. I know the great power

DARWIN'S VARIATIONS.

189

of academicism ; I know how instinctively academicism
everywhere must range itself on Mr. Darwin’s side, and
how askance it must look on those who write as I do ;
but I know also that there is a power before which
even academicism must bow, and to this power I look
not unkopefully for support.

As regards Mr. Spencer’s contention that Mr.
Darwin leaned more towards function as he grew older,
I do not doubt that at the end of his life Mr. Darwin
believed modification to be mainly due to function,
but the passage quoted on page 62 written in 1839,
coupled with the concluding paragraph of the “ Origin
of Species” written in 1859, and allowed to stand
during seventeen years of revision, though so much
else was altered — these passages, when their dates and
surroundings are considered, suggest strongly that
Mr. Darwin thought during all the forty years or so
thus covered exactly as his grandfather and Lamarck
had done, and indeed as all sensible people since
Buffon wrote have done if they have accepted evolu¬
tion at all.

Then why should he not have said so ? What
object could he have in writing an elaborate work to
support a theory which he knew all the time to be
untenable ? The impropriety of such a course, unless
the work was, like Buffon’s, transparently ironical, could
only be matched by its fatuousness, or indeed by the
folly of one who should assign action so motiveless to
any one out of a lunatic asylum.

This sounds well, but unfortunately we cannot forget
that when Mr. Darwin wrote the “ Origin of Species ”

190

LUCK, OR CUNNING '?

lie claimed to be the originator of the theory of descent
with modification generally ; that he did this without
one word of reference either to Buffon or Erasmus
Darwin until the first six thousand copies of this book
had been sold, and then with as meagre, inadequate
notice as can be well conceived. Lamarck was just
named in the first editions of the “ Origin of Species,”
but only to be told that Mr. Darwin had not got any¬
thing to give him, and he must go away ; the author
of the a Vestiges of Creation ” was also just mentioned,
but only in a sentence full of such gross misrepresen¬
tation that Mr. Darwin did not venture to stand by it,
and expunged it in later editions, as usual, without
calling attention to what he had done. It would have
been in the highest degree imprudent, not to say im¬
possible, for one so conscientious as Mr. Darwin to
have taken the line he took in respect of descent with
modification generally, if he were not provided with
some ostensibly distinctive feature, in virtue of which,
if people said anything, he might claim to have
advanced something different, and widely different,
from the theory of evolution propounded by his illus¬
trious predecessors ; a distinctive theory of some sort,
therefore, had got to be looked for — and if people look
in this spirit they can generally find.

I imagine that Mr. Darwin, casting about for a
substantial difference, and being unable to find one,
committed the Gladstonian blunder of mistaking an
unsubstantial for a substantial one. It was doubtless
because he suspected it that he never took us fully
into his confidence, nor in all probability allowed even

DARWIN'S VARIATIONS.

191

to liimself how deeply lie' distrusted it. Much, how¬
ever, as he disliked the accumulation of accidental
variations, he disliked not claiming the theory of
descent with modification still more ; and if he was
to claim this, accidental his variations had got to be.
Accidental they accordingly were, but in as obscure
and perfunctory a fashion as Mr. Darwin could make
them consistently with their being to hand as acci¬
dental variations should later developments make this
convenient. Under these circumstances it was hardly
to be expected that Mr. Darwin should help the reader
to follow the workings of his mind — nor, again, that
a book the writer of which was hampered as I have
supposed should prove clear and easy reading.

The attitude of Mr. Darwin’s mind, whatever it may
have been in regard to the theory of descent with
modification generally, goes so far to explain his
attitude in respect to the theory of natural selection
(which, it cannot be too often repeated, is only one of
the conditions of existence advanced as the main means
of modification by the earlier evolutionists), that it is
worth while to settle the question once for all whether
Mr. Darwin did or did not believe himself justified in
claiming the theory of descent as an original discovery
of his own. This will be a task of some little length,
and may perhaps try the reader’s patience, as it assuredly
tried mine ; if, however, he will read the two following
chapters, he will probably be able to make up his mind
upon much that will otherwise, if he thinks about it
at all, continue to puzzle him.

( 192 )

CHAPTER XIII.

darwin’s claim to descent with modification.

Mr. Allen, in liis “ Charles Darwin,” * says that “ in
the public mind Mr. Darwin is commonly regarded
as the discoverer and founder of the evolution hypo¬
thesis,” and on p. 177 he says that to most men
Darwinism and evolution mean one and the same
thing. Mr. Allen declares misconception on this
matter to be “ so extremely general ” as to be “ almost
universal ; ’’ this is more true than creditable to
Mr. Darwin.

Mr. Allen sayst that though Mr. Darwin gained
“ far wider general acceptance ” for both the doctrine
of descent in general, and for that of the descent
of man from a simious or semi-simious ancestor
in particular, “ he laid no sort of claim to originality
or proprietorship in either theory.” This is not the
case. No one can claim a theory more frequently
and more effectually than Mr. Darwin claimed descent
with modification, nor, as I have already said, is it
likely that the misconception of which Mr. Allen com¬
plains would be general, if he had not so claimed it.
The “ Origin of Species ” begins : —

* Page 3. f Page 4.

DARWIN'S CLAIM TO DESCENT .

193

“When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle/ as naturalist, I
was much struck with certain facts in the distribution
of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geo¬
logical relation of the present to the past inhabitants
of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw
some light on the origin of species — that mystery of
mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest
philosophers. On my return home it occurred to me,
in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out
on this question by patiently accumulating and reflect¬
ing upon all sorts of facts which could possibly have
any bearing on ft. After five years’ work I allowed
myself to speculate upon the subject, and drew up
some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844* into
a sketch of the conclusions which then seemed to me
probable. From that period to the present day I have
steadily pursued the same object. I hope I may be
excused these personal details, as I give them to show
that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.”

This is bland, but peremptory. Mr. Darwin implies
that the mere asking of the question how species has
come about opened up a field into which speculation
itself had hardly yet ventured to intrude. It was the
mystery of mysteries ; one of our greatest philosophers
had said so ; not one little feeble ray of light had ever
yet been thrown upon it. Mr. Darwin knew all this,
and was appalled at the greatness of the task that lay
before him ; still, after he had pondered on what he
had seen in South America, it really did occur to him,

* It should be remembered this was the year in which the “Vestiges
of Creation ” appeared.

194

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

that if he was very very patient, and went on reflecting
for years and years longer, upon all sorts of facts,
good, bad, and indifferent, which could possibly have
any bearing on the subject — and what fact might not
possibly have some bearing ? — well, something, as
against the nothing that had been made out hitherto,
might by some faint far-away possibility be one day
dimly seen. It was only what he had seen in South
America that made all this occur to him. He had
never seen anything about descent with modification
in any book, nor heard any one talk about it as having
been put forward by other people ; if he had, he would,
of course, have been the first to say so ; he was not
as other philosophers are ; so the mountain went on
for years and years gestating, but still there was no
labour.

(t My work,” continues Mr. Darwin, u is now nearly
finished ; but as it will take me two or three years
to complete it, and as my health is far from strong,
I have been urged to publish this abstract. I
have been more especially induced to do this, as Mr.
Wallace, who is now studying the natural history of
the Malay Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly
the same general conclusions that I have on the origin
of species.” Mr. Darwin was naturally anxious to
forestall Mr. Wallace, and hurried up with his book.
What reader, on finding descent with modification to
be its most prominent feature, could doubt — especially
if new to the subject, as the greater number of Mr.
Darwin’s readers in 1859 were — that this same descent
with modification was the theory which Mr. Darwin

DARWIN'S CLAIM TO DESCENT.

195

and Mr. Wallace had jointly hit upon, and which Mr.
Darwin was so anxious to show that he had not been
hasty in adopting ? When Mr. Darwin went on to say
that his abstract would be very imperfect, and that
he could not give references and authorities for his
several statements, we did not suppose that such an
apology could be meant to cover silence concerning
writers who during their whole lives, or nearly so,
had borne the burden and heat of the day in respect
of descent with modification in its most extended
application. “ I much regret,” says Mr. Darwin, “ that
want of space prevents my having the satisfaction of
acknowledging the generous assistance I have received
from very many naturalists, some of them personally
unknown to me.” This is like what the Royal Acade¬
micians say when they do not intend to hang our
pictures ; they can, however, generally find space for
a picture if they want to hang it, and we assume with
safety that there are no master-works by painters of
the very highest rank for which no space has been
available. Want of space will, indeed, prevent my
quoting from more than one other paragraph of
Mr. Darwin’s introduction ; this paragraph, however,
should alone suffice to show how inaccurate Mr. Allen
is in saying that Mr. Darwin “ laid no sort of claim to
originality or proprietorship ” in the theory of descent
with modification, and this is the point with which we
are immediately concerned. Mr. Darwin says : —

“ In considering the origin of species, it is quite
conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual
affinities of organic beings, -on their embryological

196

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

relations, their geographical distribution, geological
succession, and other such facts, might come to the
conclusion that each species had not been inde¬
pendently created, but had descended like varieties
from other species.”

It will be observed that not only is no hint given
here that descent with modification was a theory
which, though unknown to the general public, had been
occupying the attention of biologists for a hundred
years and more, but it is distinctly implied that this
was not the case. When Mr. Darwin said it was
“ conceivable that a naturalist might ” arrive at the
theory of descent, straightforward readers took him to
mean that though this was conceivable, it had never,
to Mr. Darwin’s knowledge, been done. If we had a
notion that we had already vaguely heard of the theory
that men and the lower animals were descended from
common ancestors, we must have been wrong ; it was
not this that we had heard of, but something else,
which, though doubtless a little like it, was all wrong,
whereas this was obviously going to be all right.

To follow the rest of the paragraph with the close¬
ness that it merits would be a task at once so Ions:
and so unpleasant that I will omit further reference to
any part of it except the last sentence. That sentence
runs : —

“ In the case of the mistletoe, which draws its
nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that
must be transported by certain birds, and which has
flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the
agency of certain kisects to bring pollen from one

DARWIN'S CLAIM TO DESCENT.

197

flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to
account for the structure of this parasite, with its rela¬
tions to several distinct organic beings, by the effects
of the external conditions, or of habit, or of the voli¬
tion of the plant itself.”

Doubtless it would be preposterous to refer the
structure of either woodpecker or mistletoe to the
single agency of any one of these three causes ; but
neither Lamarck nor any other writer on evolution
has, so far as I know, even contemplated this ; the
early evolutionists supposed organic modification to de¬
pend on the action and interaction of all three, and I
venture to think that this will ere long be considered
as, to say the least of it, not more preposterous than
the assigning of the largely preponderating share in
the production of such highly and variously correlated
organisms as the mistletoe and woodpecker mainly
to luck pure and simple, as is done by Mr. Charles
Darwin’s theory.

It will be observed that in the paragraph last
quoted from, Mr. Darwin, more suo , is careful not to
commit himself. All he has said is, that it would be
preposterous to do something the preposterousness of
which cannot be reasonably disputed ; the impression,
however, is none the less effectually conveyed, that
some one of the three assigned agencies, taken singly,
was the only cause of modification ever yet proposed,
if, indeed, any writer had even gone so far as this. We
knew we did not know much about the matter our¬
selves, and that Mr. Darwin was a naturalist of loim
and high standing ; we naturally, therefore, credited

198

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

him with the same good faith as a writer that we
knew in ourselves as readers ; it never so much as
crossed our minds to suppose that the head which he
was holding up all dripping before our eyes as that
of a fool, was not that of a fool who had actually lived
and written, but only of a figure of straw which had
been dipped in a bucket of red paint. Naturally
enough we concluded, since Mr. Darwin seemed to
say so, that if his predecessors had nothing better to
say for themselves than this, it would not be worth
while to trouble about them further ; especially as we
did not know who they were, nor what they had
written, and Mr. Darwin did not tell us. It would
be better and less trouble to take the goods with
which it was plain Mr. Darwin was going to provide
ns, and ask no questions. We have seen that even
tolerably obvious conclusions were rather slow in
occurring to poor simple-minded Mr. Darwin, and
may be sure that it never once occurred to him that
the British public would be likely to argue thus ; he
had no intention of playing the scientific confidence
trick upon us. I dare say not, but unfortunately the
result has closely resembled the one that would have
ensued if Mr. Darwin had had such an intention.

The claim to originality made so distinctly in the
opening sentences of the “ Origin of Species ” is
repeated in a letter to Professor Haeckel, written
October 8, I 864, and giving an account of the develop¬
ment of his belief in descent with modification. This
letter, part of which is quoted by Mr. Allen, ^ is

* Charles Darwin, p. 67.

DARWIN'S CLAIM TO DESCENT.

199

given on p. 134 of the English translation of Pro¬
fessor Haeckel’s “ History of Creation,” * and runs as
follows : —

“ In South America three classes of facts were
brought strongly before my mind. Firstly, the manner
in which closely allied species replace species in going
southward. Secondly, the close affinity of the species
inhabiting the islands near South America to those
proper to the continent. This struck me profoundly,
especially the difference of the species in the adjoining
islets in the Galapagos Archipelago. Thirdly, the
relation of the living Edentata and Eodentia to the
extinct species. I shall never forget my astonishment
when I dug out a gigantic piece of armour like that of
the living armadillo.

“ Reflecting on these facts, and collecting analogous
ones, it seemed to me probable that allied species
were descended from a common ancestor. But during
several years I could not conceive how each form could
have been modified so as to become admirably adapted
to its place in nature. I began, therefore, to study
domesticated animals and cultivated plants, and after
a time perceived that man’s power of selecting and
breeding from certain individuals was the most power¬
ful of all means in the production of new races.
Having attended to the habits of animals and their
relations to the surrounding conditions, I was able to
realise the severe struggle for existence to which all
organisms are subjected, and my geological observations
had allowed me to appreciate to a certain extent the

* H. S. King & Co., 1876.

200

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

duration of past geological periods. Therefore, when
I happened to read Malthus on population, the idea of
natural selection flashed on me. Of all minor points,
the last which I appreciated was the importance and
cause of the principle of divergence.”

This is all very naive, and accords perfectly with the
introductory paragraphs of the “ Origin of Species ; ”
it gives us the same picture of a solitary thinker, a
poor, lonely, friendless student of nature, who had never
so much as heard of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, or
Lamarck. Unfortunately, however, we cannot forget
the description of the influences which, according to
Mr. Grant Allen, did in reality surround Mr. Darwin’s
youth, and certainly they are more what we should
have expected than those suggested rather than ex¬
pressly stated by Mr. Darwin. cc Everywhere around
him,” says Mr. Allen, * “ in his childhood and
youth these great but formless ” (why “ formless ” ?)
“ evolutionary ideas were brewing and fermenting.
The scientific society of his elders and of the con¬
temporaries among whom he grew up was permeated
with the leaven of Laplace and Lamarck, of Hutton
and of Hersckel. Inquiry was especially everywhere
rife as to the origin and nature of specific distinctions
among plants and animals. Those who believed in
the doctrine of Buffon and of the 4 Zoonomia,’ and
those who disbelieved in it, alike, were profoundly
interested and agitated in soul by the far-reaching
implications of that fundamental problem. On every
side evolutionism, in its crude form.” (I suppose Mr.

* Page 17.

DARWIN'S CLAIM TO DESCENT.

201

Allen could not lielp saying “ in its crude form,” but
descent with modification in 1809 meant, to all intents
and purposes, and was understood to mean, what it
means now, or ought to mean, to most people.) “ The
universal stir,” says Mr. Allen on the following page,
“and deep prying into evolutionary questions which
everywhere existed among scientific men in his early
days was naturally communicated to a lad Torn of a
scientific family and inheriting directly in blood and
bone the biological tastes and tendencies of Erasmus
Darwin.”

I confess to thinking that Mr. Allen’s account of
the influences which surrounded Mr. Darwin’s youth,
if tainted with picturesqueness, is still substantially
correct. On an earlier page he had written : — “ It
is impossible to take up any scientific memoirs or
treatises of the first half of our own century without
seeing at a glance how every mind of high original
scientific importance was permeated and disturbed
by the fundamental questions aroused, but not fully
answered, by Buffon, Lamarck, and Erasmus Darwin.
In Lyell’s letters, and in Agassiz’s lectures, in the
4 Botanic Journal ’ and in the ‘ Philosophical Trans¬
actions,’ in treatises on Madeira beetles and the
Australian flora, we find everywhere the thoughts of
men profoundly influenced in a thousand directions by
this universal evolutionary solvent and leaven.

“ And while the world of thought was thus seething
and moving restlessly before the wave of ideas set
in motion by these various independent philosophers,
another group of causes in another field was rendering

202

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

smooth the path beforehand for the future champion of
the amended evolutionism. Geology on the one hand
and astronomy on the other were making men’s minds
gradually familiar with the conception of slow natural
development, as opposed to immediate and miraculous
creation.

“ The influence of these novel conceptions upon
the growth and spread of evolutionary ideas was
far-reaching and twofold. In the first place, the dis¬
covery of a definite succession of nearly related organic
forms following one another with evident closeness
through the various ages, inevitably suggested to every
inquiring observer the possibility of their direct descent
one from the other. In the second place, the discovery
that geological formations were not really separated
each from its predecessor by violent revolutions, but
were the result of gradual and ordinary changes,
discredited the old idea of frequent fresh creations
after each catastrophe, and familiarised the minds of
men of science with the alternative notion of slow
and natural evolutionary processes. The past was
seen in effect to be the parent of the present ; the
present was recognised as the child of the past.”

This is certain lv not Mr. Darwin’s own account of

t /

the matter. Probably the truth will lie somewhere
between the two extreme views : and on the one hand,
the world of thought was not seething quite so badly
as Mr. Allen represents it, while on the other, though
“ three classes of fact," &c., were undoubtedly “brought

DARWIN'S CLAIM TO DESCENT .

203

strongly before” Mr. Darwin’s “mind in South America,”
yet some of them had perhaps already been brought
before it at an earlier time, which he did not happen
to remember at the moment of writing his letter to
Professor Haeckel and the opening paragraph of the
“ Origin of Species.”

CHAPTER XIY.

DARWIN AND DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION ( Continued ).

I have said enough to show that Mr. Darwin claimed
to have been the originator of the theory of descent
with modification as distinctly as any writer usually
claims any theory ; but it will probably save the reader
trouble in the end if I bring together a good many,
though not, probably, all (for I much disliked the task,
and discharged it perfunctorily), of the passages in the
“ Origin of Species ” in which the theory of descent
with modification in its widest sense is claimed ex¬
pressly or by implication. I shall quote from the
original edition, which, it should be remembered, con¬
sisted of the very unusually large number of four
thousand copies, and from which no important devia¬
tion was made either by addition or otherwise until
a second edition of two thousand further copies had
been sold ; the “ Historical Sketch,” &c., being first
given with the third edition. The italics, which I
have employed so as to catch the reader's eye, are
mine, not Mr. Darwin’s. Mr. Darwin writes : —

“ Although much remains obscure, and will long
remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt , after the most
deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

205

am capable , that the view which most naturalists enter¬
tain, and which I formerly entertained — namely , that
each species has been independently created — is erroneous.
I am fully convinced tliat species are not immutable,
but that those belonging to what are called the same
genera are lineal descendants of some other and
generally extinct species, in the same manner as the
acknowledged varieties of any one species are the
descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am con¬
vinced that natural selection ” (or the preservation
of fortunate races) “ has been the main but not exclu¬
sive means of modification ” (p. 6).

It is not here expressly stated that the theory of
the mutability of species is Mr. Darwin’s own ; this,
nevertheless, is the inference which the great majority
of his readers were likely to draw, and did draw, from
Mr. Darwin’s words.

Again : —

“It is not that all large genera are now vary¬
ing much, and are thus increasing in the number
of their species, or that no small genera are now
multiplying and increasing ; for if this had been so it
would have been fatal to my theory; inasmuch as
geology,” &c. (p. 56).

The words “ my theory ” stand in all the editions.

Again : —

“ This relation has a clear meaning on my view oi
the subject ; I look upon all the species of any genus
as having as certainly descended from the same pro¬
genitor, as have the two sexes of any one of the
species ” (p. 1 57).

2o6

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

“ My view ” here, especially in tlie absence of refer¬
ence to any other writer as having held the same
opinion, implies as its most natural interpretation that
descent pure and simple is Mr. Darwin’s view. Sub¬
stitute u the theory of descent ” for “ my view,” and
we do not feel that we are misinterpreting the author’s
meaning. The words “ my view ” remain in all
editions.

Again : —

“ Long before having arrived at this part of my
work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to the
reader. Some of them are so grave that to this day
I can never reflect on them without being staggered ;
but to the best of my belief the greater number are
only apparent, and those that are real are not, I think,
fatal to my theory.

u These difficulties and objections may be classed
under the following heads : — Firstly, if species have
descended from other species by insensibly fine grada¬
tions, why do we not everywhere see ? ” &c. (p. 171).

We infer from this that “ my theory” is the theory
“ that species have descended from other species by
insensibly fine gradations” — that is to say, that it
is the theory of descent with modification ; for the
theory that is being objected to is obviously the theory
of descent in toto, and not a mere detail in connection
with that theory.

The words “ my theory ” were altered in 1872, with
the sixth edition of the u Origin of species,” into “ the
theory ; ” but I am chiefly concerned with the first
edition of the work, my object being to show that

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

207

Mr. Darwin was led into his false position as regards
natural selection by a desire to claim the theory of
descent with modification ; if he claimed it in the first
edition, this is enough to give colour to the view which
I take ; but it must be remembered that descent with
modification remained, by the passage just quoted u my
theory,” for thirteen years, and even when in 1869
and 1872, for a reason that I can only guess at,
“ my theory ” became generally u the theory,” this did
not make it become any one else’s theory. It is hard
to say whose or what it became, if the words are to be
construed technically ; practically, however, with all
ingenuous readers, “ the theory ” remained as much
Mr. Darwin’s theory as though the words “ my theory ”
had been retained, and Mr. Darwin cannot be supposed
so simple-minded as not to have known this would be
the case. Moreover, it appears, from the next page
but one to the one last quoted, that Mr. Darwin claimed
the theory of descent with modification generally, even
to the last, for we there read, “ By my theory these
allied species have descended from a common parent,”
and the “ my ” has been allowed, for some reason not
quite obvious, to survive the general massacre of Mr.
Darwin’s “ my’s ” which occurred in 1869 and 1872.

Again : —

“ He who believes that each being has been created
as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise
when he has met,” &c. (p. 185).

Here the argument evidently lies between descent
and independent acts of creation. This appears from
the paragraph immediately following, which begins,

208

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

“ He who believes in separate and innumerable acts
of creation,” &c. We therefore understand descent to
be the theory so frequently spoken of by Mr. Darwin
as “ my.

Again : —

“ He who will go thus far, if he find on finishing
this treatise that large bodies of facts, otherwise in¬
explicable, can be explained by the theory of descent ,
ought not to hesitate to go farther, and to admit
that a structure even as perfect as an eagle’s eye
might be formed by natural selection , although in this
case he does not know any of the transitional grades ”

(p. i 88).

The natural inference from this is that descent and
natural selection are one and the same thing.

Again : —

“ If it could be demonstrated that any complex
organ existed which could not possibly have been
formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications,
my theory would absolutely break down. But I can
find out no such case. No doubt many organs exist
of which we do not know the transitional grades, more
especially if we look to much-isolated species, round
which, according to my theory , there has been much
extinction” (p. 189).

This makes “ my theory ” to be “ the theory that
complex organs have arisen by numerous, successive,
slight modifications ; ” that is to say, to be the theory
of descent with modification. The first of the two
“ my theory’s ” in the passage last quoted has been
allowed to stand. The second became utlie theory”

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

209

in 1872. It is obvious, therefore, that “the theory”
means “ my theory ; ” it is not so obvious why the
change should have been made at all, nor why the one
“ my theory ” should have been taken and the other
left, but I will return to this question.

Again, Mr. Darwin writes : — •

u Although we must be extremely cautious in con¬
cluding that any organ could not possibly have been
produced by small successive transitional gradations,
yet, undoubtedly, grave cases of difficulty occur, some of
which will be discussed in my future work” (p. 192).

This, as usual, implies descent with modification to
be the theory that Mr. Darwin is trying to make good.

Again : —

“I have been astonished how rarely an organ can
be named towards which no transitional variety is
known to lead. . . . Why, on the theory of creation ,
should this be so ? . . . Why should not nature have
taken a leap from structure to structure ? On the
theoi'y of natural selection we can clearly understand
why she should not ; for natural selection can act only
by taking advantage of slight successive variations ;
she can never take a leap, but must advance by the
slowest and shortest steps ” (p. 194).

Here “ the theory of natural selection ” is opposed
to “ the theory of creation ; ” we took it, therefore, to
be another way of saying “ the theory of descent with
modification.”

Again : —

“ We have in this chapter discussed some of the

difficulties and objections which may be urged against

210

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

my theory. Many of them are very grave, but I think
that in the discussion light has been thrown on several
facts -which, on the theory of independent acts of creation ,
are utterly obscure’’ (p. 203).

Here we have, on the one hand, “ my theory,”
on the other, “ independent acts of creation.” The
natural antithesis to independent acts of creation is
descent, and we assumed with reason that Mr. Darwin
was claiming this when he spoke of “ my theory.”
“ My theory ” became “ the theory ” in 1869.

Again : —

“ On the theory of natural selection we can clearly
understand the full meaning of that old canon in
natural history, 1 Natura non facit saltum This canon,
if we look only to the present inhabitants of the world,
is not strictly correct, but if we include all those of
past times, it must by my theory be strictly true ”
(p- 206). . .

Here the natural interpretation of u by my theory ”
is “ by the theory of descent with modification ; ” the
words “ on the theory of natural selection ; ” with which
the sentence opens, lead us to suppose that Mr. Darwin
regarded natural selection and descent as convertible
terms. “ My theory ” was altered to “ this theory ” in
1872. Six lines lower down we read, “ On my theory
unity of type is explained by unity of descent.” The
“ my ” here has been allowed to stand.

Again : —

“ Again, as in the case of corporeal structure,
and conformably with my theory , the instinct of each
species is good for itself, but has never,” &c. (p. 2 1 o).

DARWIN AND DESCENT .

211

f Who was to see that “ my theory ” did not include
descent with modification ? The “ my ” here has been
allowed to stand.

Again : —

“ The fact that instincts . . . are liable to make
mistakes ; — that no instinct has been produced for the
exclusive good of other animals, but that each animal
takes advantage of the instincts of others ; — that the
canon of natural history, ‘ Natura non fcicit saltum is
applicable to instincts as well as to corporeal structure,
and is plainly explicable on the foregoing views, but
is otherwise inexplicable, — all tend to corroborate the
theory of natural selection ” (p. 243).

We feel that it is the theory of evolution, or descent
with modification, that is here corroborated, and that it
is this which Mr. Darwin is mainly trying to establish ;
the sentence should have ended “ all tend to corro¬
borate the theory of descent with modification ; ” the
substitution of “ natural selection ” for descent tends
to make us think that these conceptions are identical.
That they are so regarded, or at any rate that it is the
theory of descent in full which Mr. Darwin has in his
mind, appears from the immediately succeeding para¬
graph, which begins “ This theory ,” and continues six
lines lower, “ For instance, we can understand, on the
principle of inheritance , how it is that,” &c.

Again : —

“ In the first place, it should always be borne in
mind what sort of intermediate forms must, on my
theory , formerly have existed" (p. 280).

“My theory” became “the theory” in 1869. No

212

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

reader who read in good faith could doubt that the
theory of descent with modification was being here
intended.

“It is just possible by my theory, that one of two
living forms might have descended from the other ; for
instance, a horse from a tapir ; but in this case direct
intermediate links will have existed between them ”
(p. 281).

“My theory” became “the theory” in 1869.

Again : —

“ By the theory of natural selection all living species
have been connected with the parent species of each
genus,” &c. We took this to mean, “ By the theory
of descent with modification all living species,” &c.
(p. 281).

Again : — •

“ Some experienced conchologists are now sinking
many of the very fine species of D’Orbigny and others
• into the rank of varieties ; and on this view we do find
the kind of evidence of change which on my theory we
ought to find” (p. 297).

“My theory” became “the theory” in 1869.

In the fourth edition (1866), in a passage which is
not in either of the two first editions, we read,
(p. 3 59), “ So that here again we have undoubted
evidence of change in the direction required by my
theory.” “ My theory ” became “ the theory ” in
1869; the theory of descent with modification is
unquestionably intended.

Again : —

“ Geological research has done scarcely anything

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

21 3

in breaking down the distinction between species, by
connecting them together by numerous, fine, inter¬
mediate' varieties ; and this not having been effected,
is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the
many objections which may be urged against my
views ” (p- 299-)

We naturally took “ my views ” to mean descent
with modification. The “ my ” has been allowed to
stand.

Again : —

“ If, then, there be some degree of truth in these
remarks, we have no right to expect to find in our
geological formations an infinite number of those
transitional forms which on my theory assuredly have
connected all the past and present species of the same
group in one long and branching chain of life. . . .
But I do not pretend that I should ever have sus¬
pected how poor was the record in the best preserved
geological sections, had not the absence of innumerable
transitional links between the species which lived at
the commencement and at the close of each formation
pressed so hardly on my theory ” (pp. 301, 302).

Substitute “ descent with modification ” for “ my
theory ” and the meaning does not suffer. The first
of the two “ my theories ” in the passage last quoted
was altered in 1869 into “ our theory;” the second
has been allowed to stand.

Again : —

“ The abrupt manner in which whole groups of
species suddenly appear in some formations, has
been urged by several palaeontologists ... as a fatal

214

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

objection to the belief in the transmutation of species.
If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or
families, have really started into life all at once, the
fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow
modification through natural selection ” (p. 302).

Here “ the belief in the transmutation of species,”
or descent with modification, is treated as synonymous
with “ the theory of descent with slow modification
through natural selection ; ” but it has nowhere been
explained that there are two widely different “ theories
of descent with slow modification through natural
selection,” the one of which may be true enough for
all practical purposes, while the other is seen to be
absurd as soon as it is examined closely. The theory
of descent with modification is not properly convertible
with either of these two views, for descent with modi¬
fication deals with the question whether species are
transmutable or no, and dispute as to the respective
merits of the two natural selections deals with the
question how it conies to be transmuted ; nevertheless,
the words “ the theory of descent with slow modifica¬
tion through the ordinary course of things ” (which
is what “ descent with modification through natural
selection ” comes to) may be considered as expressing
the facts with practical accuracy, if the ordinary course
of nature is supposed to be that modification is mainly
consequent on the discharge of some correlated func¬
tion, and that modification, if favourable, will tend to
accumulate so long as the given function continues
important to the wellbeing of the organism ; the
words, however, have no correspondence with reality if

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

215

they are supposed to imply that variations which are
mainly matters of pure chance and unconnected in
any way with function will accumulate and result in
specific difference, no matter how much each* one of
them may be preserved in the generation in which it
appears. In the one case, therefore, the expression
natural selection may be loosely used as a synonym
for descent with modification, and in the other it may
not. Unfortunately with Mr. Charles Darwin the varia¬
tions are mainly accidental. The words “ through
natural selection,” therefore, in the passage last quoted
carry no weight, for it is the wrong natural selection
that is, or ought to be, intended ; practically, however,
they derived a weight from Mr. Darwin’s name to
which they had no title of their own, and we under¬
stood that “ the theory of descent with slow modifica¬
tion ” through the kind of natural selection ostensibly
intended by Mr. Darwin was a quasi-synonymous ex¬
pression for the transmutation of species. We under¬
stood — so far as we understood anything beyond that
we were to believe in descent with modification — that
natural selection was Mr. Darwin’s theory ; we therefore
concluded, since Mr. Darwin seemed to say so, that
the theory of the transmutation of species generally
was so also. At any rate we felt as regards the
passage last quoted that the theory of descent with
modification was the point of attack and defence, and
we supposed it to be the theory so often referred to by
Mr. Darwin as “ my.”

Again : —

u Some of the most ancient Silurian animals, as the

2l6

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

Nautilus, Lingula, &c., do not differ mucli from tlie
living species ; and it cannot on my theory be supposed
that these old species were the progenitors,” &c. (p.
306). . . . “Consequently if my theory be true, it is
indisputable,” &c. (p. 307).

Here the two “ my theories ” have been altered,
the first into “ our theory,” and the second into “ the
theory,” both in 1869; but, as usual, the thing that
remains with the reader is the theory of descent, and
it remains morally and practically as much claimed
when called “ the theory ” as during the many years
throughout which the more open “ my ” distinctly
claimed it.

Again : —

“ All the most eminent palaeontologists, namely,
Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, E. Forbes, &c., and
all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedg¬
wick, &c., have unanimously, often vehemently, main¬
tained the immutability of species. ... I feel how rash
it is to differ from these great authorities. . . . Those
who think the natural geological record in any degree
perfect, and who do not attach much weight to the
facts and arguments of other kinds brought forward
in this volume, will undoubtedly at once reject my
theory ” (p. 310).

What is “ my theory ” here, if not that of the muta¬
bility of species, or the theory of descent with modi¬
fication ? “My theory” became “the theory” in
I 869.

Again : —

“ Let us now see whether the several facts and rules

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

'21 7

relating to the geological succession of organic beings,
better accord with the common view of the immuta¬
bility of species, or with that of their slow and gradual
modification , through descent and natural selection ”

(p. 312).

The words “ natural selection ” are indeed here,
but they might as well be omitted for all the effect
they produce. The argument is felt to be about the
two opposed theories of descent, and independent
creative efforts.

Again : —

“ These several facts accord well with my theory ”

(P-314)-

That “ my theory ” is the theory of descent is the
conclusion most naturally drawn from the context.
“ My theory ” became u our theory in 1869.

Again : —

“ This gradual increase in the number of the species
of a group is strictly comformable with my theory ; . . .
for the process of modification and the production of a
number of allied forms must be slow and gradual, . . .
like the branching of a great tree from a single stem,
till the group becomes large ” (p. 3 14).

u My theory ” became “ the theory ” in 1 869. We
took “ my theory ” to be the theory of descent ; that
Mr. Darwin treats this as synonymous with the theory
of natural selection appears from the next paragraph,
on the third line of which we read, “ On the theory of
natural selection the extinction of old forms,” &c.

Again : —

“ The theory of natural selection is grounded on the

2 1 8

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

belief that each new variety and ultimately each new
species, is produced and maintained by having some
advantage over those with which it comes into com-
petition ; and the consequent extinction of less favoured
forms almost inevitably follows” (p. 320). Sense and
consistency cannot be made of this passage. Substitute
“ The theory of the preservation of favoured races
in the struggle for life ” for u The theory of natural
selection ” (to do this is only taking Mr. Darwin’s
own synonym for natural selection), and see what
the passage comes to. “ The preservation of favoured
races ” is not a theory, it is a commonly observed
fact ; it is not “ grounded on the belief that each
new varietv,” &c., it is one of the ultimate and most
elementary principles in the world of life. When, we
try to take the passage seriously and think it out,
we soon give it up, and pass on, substituting “ the
theory of descent ” for “ the
tion,” and concluding that in some way these two
things must be identical.

Again : —

“ The manner in which single species and whole
groups of species become extinct accords well with
the theory of natural selection ” (p. 322).

Again : —

“ This great fact of the parallel succession of the
forms of life throughout the world, is explicable on the
theory of natural selection ” (p. 325).

Again : —

“ Let us now look to the mutual affinities of ex¬
tinct and living species. They all fall into one grand

theory of natural selec-

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

219

natural system ; and this is at once explained on the
principle of descent” (p. 329).

Putting the three preceding passages together, we
naturally inferred that u the theory of natural selection ”
and “ the principle of descent ” were the same things.
We knew Mr. Darwin claimed the first, and therefore
unhesitatingly gave him the second at the same time.

Again : —

“ Let ns see how far these several facts and infer¬
ences accord with the theory of descent with modifica¬
tion” (p. 331).

Again : —

“ Thus, on the theory of descent with modification ,
the main facts with regard to the mutual affinities
of the extinct forms of life to each other and to living
forms, seem to me explained in a satisfactory manner.
And they are wholly inexplicable on any other mew ”

(P- 3 33)-

The words “ seem to me ” involve a claim in the
absence of so much as a hint in any part of the book
concerning indebtedness to earlier writers.

Again : —

“ On the theory of descent , the full meaning of the
fossil remains,” &c. (p. 33 6).

In the following paragraph we read : —

“ But in one particular sense the more recent forms
must, on my theory , be higher than the more ancient.”

Again : —

“ Agassiz insists that ancient animals resemble to a
certain extent the embryos of recent animals of the
same classes ; or that the geological succession of

220

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

extinct forms is in some degree parallel to tlie embryo-
logical development of recent forms. . . . This doc¬
trine of Agassiz accords well with the theory of natural
selection ” (p- 338).

“ The theory of natural selection ” became “ our
theory” in 1869. The opinion of Agassiz accords
excellently with the theory of descent with modifica¬
tion, but it is not easy to see how it bears upon the fact
that lucky races are preserved in the struggle for life
— which, according to Mr. Darwin’s title-page, is what
is meant by natural selection.

Again : —

“ On the theory of descent with modification , the
great law of the long-enduring but not immutable
succession of the same types within the same areas, is
at once explained” (p. 340).

Again : —

“ It must not be forgotten that, on my theory , all
the species of the same genus have descended from
some one species” (p. 341).

“ My theory ” became “ our theory ” in I 869.

Again : —

“ He who rejects these views on the nature of the
geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory ”

(p- 342).

“ My ” became “ our ” in 1 869.

Again : —

“ Passing from these difficulties, the other great
leading facts in palaeontology agree admirably with the
theory of descent with modification through variation
and natural selection ” (P- 343)-

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

221

Asfain : —

“ The succession of the same types of structure
within the same areas during the later geological
periods ceases to be mysterious, and is simply explained
by inheritance ” (p. 345).

I suppose inheritance was not when Mr. Darwin
wrote considered mysterious. The last few words have
been altered to “ and is intelligible on the principle of
inheritance.” It seems as though Mr. Darwin did not
like saying that inheritance was not mysterious, but
had no objection to implying that it was intelligible.

The next paragraph begins — “ If, then, the geo¬
logical record be as imperfect as I believe it to be,
. . . the main objections to the theory of natural
selection are greatly diminished or disappear. On the
other hand, all the chief laws of palaeontology plainly
proclaim, as it seems to me, that species have been pro¬
duced by ordinary generation .”

Here again the claim to the theory of descent with
modification is unmistakable ; it cannot, moreover,
but occur to us that if species “ have been produced
by ordinary generation,” then ordinary generation has
as good a claim to be the main means of originating
species as natural selection has. It is hardly neces¬
sary to point out that ordinary generation involves
descent with modification, for all known offspring
differ from their parents, so far, at any rate, as that
practised judges can generally tell them apart.

Again : —

“ We see in these facts some deep organic bond,
prevailing throughout space and time, over the same

222

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

areas of land and water, and independent of tlieir
physical condition. The naturalist must feel little
curiosity who is not led to inquire what this bond is.

“ This bond, on my theory, is simply inheritance , that
cause which alone,” &c. (p. 350).

This passage was altered in 1869 to “The bond is
simply inheritance.” The paragraph concludes, u On
this principle of inheritance with modification , we can
understand how it is that sections of genera . . . are
confined to the same areas,” &c.

Again : —

“ He who rejects it rejects the vera causa of ordinary
generation,” &c. (p. 352).

We naturally ask, Why call natural selection the.
u main means of modification,” if u ordinary genera¬
tion ” is a vera causa ?

Again : —

“ In discussing this subject, we shall be enabled at
the same time to consider a point equally important
for us, namely, whether the several distinct species of
a genus, which on my theory have all descended from a
common ancestor, can have migrated (undergoing modi¬
fication during some part of their migration) from the
area inhabited by their progenitor” (p. 354).

The words “ on my theory ” became “ on our
theory ” in 1869.

Again : —

“ With those organic beings which never intercross
(if such exist) the species , on my theory , must have
descended from a succession of improved varieties f &c.

(P- 3 55)-

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

223

* The words “on my theory” were cut out iu 1869.

Again : —

“ A slow southern migration of a marine fauna
. . . will account, on the theory of 'modification , for
many closely allied forms/’ &c. (p. 372).

Again : —

“ But the existence of several quite distinct species,
belonging to genera exclusively confined to the
southern hemisphere, is, on my theory of descent with
modification , a far more remarkable case of difficulty ”

(p- 381).

“My” became “the” in 1866 with the fourth
edition. This was the most categorical claim to the
theory of descent with modification in the “ Origin of
Species.” The “ my ” here is the only one that was
taken out before 1 869. I suppose Mr. Darwin thought
that with the removal of this “ my ” he had ceased to
claim the theory of descent with modification. Nothing,
however, could be gained by calling the reader’s atten¬
tion to what he had been done, so nothing was said
about it.

Again : —

“ Some species of fresh- water shells have a very
wide range, and cdlied species , which , on my theory ,
are descended from a single source , prevail throughout
the world” (p. 385).

“ My theory ” became “ our theory ” in 1 869.

Again : —

“ In the following remarks I shall not confine
myself to the mere question of dispersal, but shall
consider some other facts which bear upon the truth

224

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

of the two theories of independent creation and of descent
with modification ” (p. 389). What can be plainer
than that the theory which Mr. Darwin espouses,
and has so frequently called “ my,” is descent with*
modification ?

Again : —

“ But as these animals and their spawn are known
to be immediately killed by sea- water, on my view , we
can see that there would be great difficulty in their
transportal across the sea, and therefore why they do
not exist on any oceanic island. But why, on the
theory of creation , they should not have been created
there, it would be very difficult to explain ” (p. 393 ).

“ On my view ” was cut out in 1869.

On the following page we read — “ On my view this
question can easily be answered.” “ On my view ” is
retained in the latest edition.

Again : —

“Yet there must be, on my view, some unknown
but highly efficient means for their transportation”

(P- 397)-

“ On my view ” became “ according to our view ”
in 1869.

Again : —

“ I believe this grand fact can receive no sort of
explanation on the ordinary view of independent crea¬
tion ; whereas, on the view here maintained, it is ob¬
vious that the Galapagos Islands would be likely to
receive colonists . . . from America, and the Cape
de Yerde Islands from Africa; and that such colonists
would be liable to modification ; the principle of in-

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

lieritance still betraying their original birth-place ”

(P- 399)-

Again : —

“ With respect to the distinct species of the same
genus which, on my theory , must have spread from one
parent source, if we make the same allowances as
before,” &c.

u On my theory ” became “ on our theory ” in I 869.

Again : —

“ On my theory these several relations throughout
time and space are intelligible ; . . . the forms within
each class have been connected by the same bond of
ordinary generation ; in both cases the laws of

variation have been the same, and modifications have
been accumulated by the same power of natural
selection” (p. 410).

a On my theory ” became iC according to our theory ”
in 1869, and natural selection is no longer a power,
but has become a means.

Again : —

“ I believe that something more is included , and that
propinquity of descent — the only known cause of the
similarity of organic beings — is the bond, hidden as it
is by various degrees of modification, which is partially
revealed to us by our classification ” (p. 418).

Again : —

“ Thus , on the vicio which I hold, the natural system
is genealogical in its arrangement, like a pedigree ”
(p. 422).

“ On the view which I hold ” was cut out in
1872.

226

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

Again : —

“ We may feel almost sure, on the theory of descent ,
that these characters have been inherited from a
common ancestor” (p. 426).

Again : —

“ On my view of characters being of real importance
for classification only in so far as they reveal descent ,
we can clearly understand,” &c. (p. 427).

u On my view” became a on the view” in 1872.

Again : —

u The more aberrant any form is, the greater must
be the number of connecting forms which, on my
theory , have been exterminated and utterly lost ”
(p. 429).

The words “ on my theory” were excised in 1869.

Again : —

Finally, we have seen that natural selection . . .
explains that great and universal feature in the
affinities of all organic beings, namely, their subordi¬
nation in group under group. We use the element of
descent in classing the individuals of both sexes, &c. ;
. . . we use descent in classing acknowledged varieties ;
. . . and I believe this element of descent is the
hidden bond of connection which naturalists have sought
under the term of the natural system” (p. 433).

Lamarck was of much the same oprnion, as I
showed in u Evolution Old and New.” He wrote : —
“ An arrangement should be considered systematic, or
arbitrary, when it does not conform to the genealogical
order taken by nature in the development of the
things arranged, and when, by consequence, it is not

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

22 7

founded on well-considered analogies. There is a
natural order in every department of nature ; it is the
order in which its several component items have been
successively developed.” # The point, however, which
should more particularly engage our attention is that
Mr. Darwin in the passage last quoted uses 11 natural
selection ” and “ descent ” as though they were con¬
vertible terms.

Again : —

“ Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to
explain this similarity of pattern in members of the
same class by utility or the doctrine of final causes.
... On the ordinary view of the independent creation
of each being , we can only say that so it is. . . . The
explanation is manifest on the theory of the natural
selection of successive slight modifications,” &c. (p. 435).

This now stands — “ The explanation is to a large
extent simple, on the theory of the selection of successive,
slight modifications.” I do not like u a large extent ”
of simplicity ; but, waiving this, the point at issue is
not whether the ordinary course of things ensures a
quasi-selection of the types that are best adapted to
their surroundings, with accumulation of modification
in various directions, and hence wide eventual differ¬
ence between species descended from common pro¬
genitors — no evolutionist since 1750 has doubted
this — but whether a general principle underlies the
modifications from among which the quasi-selection is
made, or whether they are destitute of such principle
and referable, as far as we are concerned, to chance

* Phil. Zool., tom. i. pp. 34, 35.

228

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

only. Waiving this again, we note that the theories
of independent creation and of natural selection are
contrasted, as though they were the only two alter¬
natives ; knowing the two alternatives to be indepen¬
dent creation and descent with modification, we
naturally took natural selection to mean descent with
modification.

Asfain : —

“ On the theory of natural selection we can satis¬
factorily answer these questions” (p. 437).

“ Satisfactorily ” now stands “ to a certain extent.”

Again : —

“ On my mew these terms maybe used literally”

(PP- 433, 439)-

“ On my view ” became “ according to the views
here maintained such language may be,” &c., in
1 869.

Again : —

“ I believe all these facts can be explained as follows,
on the view of descent with modification” (p. 443).

This sentence now ends at “ follows.”

Again : —

“ Let us take a genus of birds, descended , on my
theory , from some one parent species , and of which the
several new species have become modified through natu¬
ral selection in accordance with their divers habits ”
(p. 446).

The words “ on my theory” were cut out in 1869,
and the passage now stands, “ Let us take a group of
birds, descended from some ancient form and modified
through natural selection for different habits.”

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

229

Again : —

“ On my view of descent with modification , the origin
of rudimentary organs is simple” (p. 454).

“ On my view ” became “ on the view ” in 1 869.

Again : —

“ On the view of descent with modification ,” &c.

(P- 455)-

Again : —

u On this same view of descent with modification all
the great facts of morphology become intelligible ”
(P. 456).

Again : —

“ That many and grave objections may be advanced
against the theory of descent with modification through
natural selection, I do not deny ” (p. 4 5 9).

This now stands, “ That many and serious objections
may be advanced against the theory of descent with
modification through variation and natural selection , I
do not deny.”

Aofain : —

“ There are, it must be admitted, cases of special
difficulty on the theory of natural selection ” (p. 460).

“ On ” has become u opposed to ; ” it is not easy
to see why this alteration was made, unless because
“ opposed to ” is longer.

Again : —

“ Turning to geographical distribution, the diffi¬
culties encountered on the theory of descent with
modification are grave enough.”

“ Grave ” has become “ serious,” but there is no
other change (p. 461).

230

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

Again : —

“ As on the theory of natural selection an inter¬
minable number of intermediate forms mnst have
existed/’ &c.

“ On ” has become “ according to ” — -which is cer¬
tainly longer, but does not appear to possess any other
advantage over “ on.” It is not easy to understand
why Mr. Darwin should have strained at such a gnat
as “ on,” though feeling no discomfort in such an
expression as “ an interminable number.”

A gain : —

u This is the most forcible of the many objections
which may be urged against my theory. ... For
certainly, on my theory &c. (p. 463).

u The “ my ” in each case became “ the in 1869.

Again : —

“ Such is the sum of the several chief objections
and difficulties which may be justly urged against my
theory” (p. 465).

“ My ” became “ the ” in 1869.

Again : —

“ Grave as these several difficulties are, in my judg¬
ment they do not overthrow the theory of descent with
modification” (p. 466).

This now stands, “ Serious as these several objec¬
tions are, in my judgment they are by no means
sufficient to overthrow the theory of descent with sub¬
sequent modification ; ” which, again, is longer, and
shows at what little little gnats Mr. Darwin could
strain, but is no material amendment on the orginal
passage.

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

231

A grain : — •

“ The theory of natural selection , even if we looked
no further than this, seems to me to be in itself prob¬
able ” (p. 469).

This now stands, “ The theory of natural selection,
even if we look no further than this, seems to be in the
highest degree probable It is not only probable, but
was very sufficiently proved long before Mr. Darwin
was born, only it must be the right natural selection
and not Mr. Charles Darwin’s.

Again : — -

“It is inexplicable, on the theory of creation , why a
part developed, &c., . . . but , on my view, this part
has undergone,” &c. (p. 474).

“ On my view ” became “ on our view ” in I 869.

Again : — -

“ Glancing at instincts, marvellous as some are,
they offer no greater difficulty than does corporeal
structure on the theory of the natural selection of suc¬
cessive, slight, but profitable modifications' ' (p. 474).

Again : —

“ On the view of all the species of the same genus
having descended from a common parent , and having
inherited much in common, we can understand how
it is,” &c. (p. 474).

Again : —

“ If we admit that the geological record is imper¬
fect in an extreme degree, then such facts as the
record gives, support the theory of descent with
modification .

“ . . . The extinction of species . . . almost in-

232

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

evitably follows on the principle of natural selection ”
(P- 475)-

Tlie word “ almost ” has got a great deal to answTer for.

Again : — •

“We can understand, on the theory of descent with
modification, most of the great leading facts in Dis¬
tribution ” (p. 476).

Again : —

The existence of closely allied or representative
species in any two areas, implies, on the theory of de¬
scent with modification , that the same parents formerly
inhabited both areas. ... It must be admitted that
these facts receive no explanation on the theory of
creation. . . . The fact ... is intelligible on the
theory of natural selection, with its contingencies of
extinction and divergence of character” (p. 478).

Again : —

“ Innumerable other such facts at once explain
themselves on the theory of descent with slow and slight
successive modifications ” (p. 479).

Again : —

“ Any one whose disposition leads him to attach
more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the
explanation of a certain number of facts, will certainly
reject my theory ” (p. 482).

“ My theory ” became “ the theory ” in 1869.

From'this point to the end of the book the claim
is so ubiquitous, either expressly or by implication,
that it is difficult to know what not to quote. I must,
however, content myself with only a few more extracts.
Mr. Darwin says : —

DARWIN AND DESCENT.

“ It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of
the modification of species” (p. 482).

Again : —

“ Analogy would lead me one step further, namely,
to the belief that all animals and plants have de¬
scended from some one prototype. . . . Therefore I
should infer from analogy that probably all the orga¬
nic beings which have ever lived on this earth have
descended from some one primordial form, into which
life was first breathed.”

From an amoeba — Adam, in fact, though not in name.
This last sentence is now completely altered, as well it
might be.

Again : —

“ When the views entertained in this volume on the
origin of species , or when analogous views arc generally
admitted , we can dimly foresee that there will be
a considerable revolution in natural history ” (p.

434)-

Possibly. This now stands, a When the views ad¬
vanced by me in this volume, and by Mr. Wallace,
or when analogous views on the origin of species are
generally admitted, we can dimly foresee,” &c. When
the u Origin of Species ” came out we knew nothing
of any analogous views, and Mr. Darwin’s words
passed unnoticed. I do not say that he knew they
would, but he certainly ought to have known.

Ao-ain : — -

u A grand and almost untrodden field of inguiry will
be opened , on the causes and laws of variation, on
correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse,

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

234

on the direct action of external conditions, and so
forth” (p. 486).

Buffon and Lamarck had trodden this field to some
purpose, but not a hint to this effect is vouchsafed
to us.

Again : — •

“ When I view all beings not as special creations , but
as the lineal descendants of some few beings luhich lived
long before the first bed of the Silurian system was
deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. . . .
We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity
as to foretell that it will be the common and widely
spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant
groups, which will ultimately prevail and procreate
new and dominant species.”

There is no alteration in this except that u Silurian ”
has become u Cambrian.”

The idyllic paragraph with which Mr. Darwin con¬
cludes his book contains no more special claim to the
theory of descent en bloc than many another which I
have allowed to pass unnoticed ; it has been, moreover,
dealt with in an earlier chapter (Chapter XII.)

( 235 )

CHAPTER XV.

THE EXCISED “ MYS.”

I HAVE quoted in all ninety-seven passages, as near as I
can make them, in which Mr. Darwin claimed the theory
of descent, either expressly by speaking of cc my theory ”
in such connection that the theory of descent ought to
be, and, as the event has shown, was, understood as
being intended, or by implication, as in the opening
passages of the “ Origin of Species,” in which he tells
us how he had thought the matter out without acknow¬
ledging obligation of any kind to earlier writers. The
original edition of the “ Origin of Species ” contained
490 pp., exclusive of index ; a claim, therefore, more
or less explicit, to the theory of descent was made on
the average about once in every five pages throughout
the book from end to end ; the claims were most
prominent in the most important parts, that is to say,
at the beginning and end of the work, and this made
them more effective than they are made even by their
frequency. A more ubiquitous claim than this it
would be hard to find in the case of any writer
advancing a new theory ; it is difficult, therefore, to
understand how Mr. Grant Allen could have allowed

2j6

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

liimself to say that Mr. Darwin “ laid no sort of
claim to originality or proprietorship ” in the theory
of descent with modification.

Nevertheless I have only found one place where
Mr. Darwin pinned himself down beyond possibility
of retreat, however ignominious, by using the words
“ my theory of descent with modification.” * He
often, as I have said, speaks of “ my theory,” and
then shortly afterwards of “ descent with modification,”
under such circumstances that no one who had not
been brought up in the school of Mr. Gladstone could
doubt that the two expressions referred to the same
thing. He seems to have felt that he must be a poor
wriggler if he could not wriggle out of this ; give him
any loophole, however small, and Mr. Darwin could
trust himself to get out through it ; but he did not
like saying what left no loophole at all, and “ my
theory of descent with modification ” closed all exits so
firmly that it is surprising he should ever have allowed
himself to use these words. As I have said, Mr.
Darwin only used this direct categorical form of claim
in one place ; and even here, after it had stood through
three editions, two of which had been largely altered,
he could stand it no longer, and altered the u my ”
into “the” in 1866, with the fourth edition of the
“ Origin of Species.”

This was the only one of the original forty-five
my’s that was cut out before the appearance of the
fifth edition in 1869, and its excision throws curious
light upon the working of Mr. Darwin’s mind. The

* Origin of Species, p. 381, ed. I.

THE EXCISED “MF\S.”

2 37

selection, of tlie most categorical my out of tlie wliole
forty-five, shows that Mr. Darwin knew all about his
my’s, and, while seeing reason to remove this, held
that the others might very well stand. He even left
u On my view of descent with modification,” * which,
though more capable of explanation than “ my theory,”
&c, still runs it close ; nevertheless the excision of
even a single my that had been allowed to stand
through such close revisions as those to which the
a Origin of Species ” had been subjected betrays un¬
easiness of mind, for it is impossible that even Mr.
Darwin should not have known that though the my
excised in 1866 was the most technically categorical,
the others were in reality just as guilty, though no
tower of Siloam in the shape of excision fell upon
them. If, then, Mr. Darwin was so uncomfortable
about this one as to cut it out, it is probable he was
far from comfortable about the others.

This view derives confirmation from the fact that
in 1869, with the fifth edition of the u Origin of
Species,” there was a stampede of my’s throughout
the whole work, no less than thirty out of the original
forty-five being changed into “ the,” “our,” “this,” or
some other word, which, though having all the effect
of my, still did not say “ my ” outright. These my’s
were, if I may say so, sneaked out ; nothing was said
to explain their removal to the reader or call attention
to it. Why, it may be asked, having been considered
during the revisions of 1861 and 1866, and with
only one exception allowed to stand, why should they

* P. 454, ed. 1.

238 LUCK , OR CUNNING?

be smitten with a homing instinct in such large
numbers with the fifth edition ? It cannot be main¬
tained that Mr. Darwin had had his attention called
now for the first time to the fact that he had used
my perhaps a little too freely, and had better be more
sparing of it for the future. The my excised in 1866
shows that Mr. Darwin had already considered this
question, and saw no reason to remove any but the
one that left him no loophole. Why, then, should
that which was considered and approved in 1859,
1861, and 1866 (not to mention the second edition
of 1859 or i860) be retreated from with every ap¬
pearance of panic in 1869? Mr. Darwin could not
well have cut out more than he did — not at any rate
without saying something about it, and it would not
be easy to know exactly what to say. Of the fourteen
iny’s that were left in 1869, five more were cut out
in 1872, and nine only were allowed eventually to
remain. We naturally ask, Why leave any if thirty-
six ought to be cut out, or why cut out thirty-six if
nine ought to be left — especially when the claim
remains practically just the same after the excision
as before it ?

I imagine complaint had early reached Mr. Darwin
that the difference between himself and his predecessors
was unsubstantial and hard to grasp ; traces of some
such feeling appear even in the late Sir Charles Ly ell’s
“ Principles of Geology,” in which he writes that he
had reprinted his abstract of Lamarck’s doctrine word
for word, u in justice to Lamarck, in order to show
how nearly the opinions taught by him at the begin-

THE EXCISED “ MY’S.”

239

ning of tliis century resembled those now in vogue
among a large body of naturalists respecting the
infinite variability of species, and the progressive de¬
velopment in past time of the organic world.” # Sir
Charles Lyell could not have written thus if he had
thought that Mr. Darwin had already done “justice
to Lamarck,” nor is it likely that he stood alone in
thinking as he did. It is probable that more reached
Mr. Darwin than reached the public, and that the
historical sketch prefixed to all editions after the first
six thousand copies had been sold — meagre and slovenly
as it is — was due to earlier manifestation on the part
of some of Mr. Darwin’s friends of the feeling that
was afterwards expressed by Sir Charles Lyell in the
passage quoted above. I suppose the removal of the
my that was cut out in 1866 to be due partly to the
Gladstonian tendencies of Mr. Darwin’s mind, which
would naturally make that particular my at all times
more or less offensive to him, and partly to the increase
of objection to it that must have ensued on the addition
of the “ brief but imperfect ” historical sketch in
1861 ; it is doubtless only by an oversight that this
particular my was not cut out in 1861. The
stampede of 1869 was probably occasioned by the ap¬
pearance in Germany of Professor Haeckel’s “ History
of Creation.” This was published in 1868, and Mr.
Darwin no doubt foresaw that it would be translated
into English, as indeed it subsequently was. In
this book some account is given — very badly, but still
much more felly than by Mr. Darwin— of Lamarck’s

* Principles of Geology, vol ii. chap, xxxiv., ed. 1S72.

240

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

work; and even Erasmus Darwin is mentioned —
inaccurately — but still lie is mentioned. Professor
Haeckel says : —

“ Although, the theory of development had been
already maintained at the beginning of this century
by several great naturalists, especially by Lamarck and
Goethe, it only received complete demonstration and
causal foundation nine years ago through Darwin’s
work, and it is on this account that it is now generally
(though not altogether rightly) regarded as exclusively
Mr. Darwin’s theory.” #

Later on, after giving nearly a hundred pages to
the works of the early evolutionists — pages that would
certainly disquiet the sensitive writer who had cut out
the my which disappeared in 1866 — he continued: —

“We must distinguish clearly (though this is not
usually done) between, firstly, the theory of descent as
advanced by Lamarck, which deals only with the fact
of all animals and plants being descended from a com¬
mon source, and secondly, Darwin’s theory of natural
selection, which shows us why this progressive modi¬
fication of organic forms took place” (p. 93).

This passage is as inaccurate as most of those by
Professor Haeckel that I have had occasion to examine
have proved to be. Letting alone that Buffon, not
Lamarck, is the foremost name in connection with
descent, I have already shown in “Evolution Old and
New ” that Lamarck goes exhaustively into the how
and why of modification. He alleges the conservation,
or preservation, in the ordinary course of nature, ot

* Naturliclie Schopfungsgeschichte, p. 3. Berlin, 1868.

THE EXCISED “ MY'S.”

241

the most favourable among variations that have been
induced mainly by function ; this, I have sufficiently
explained, is natural selection, though the words “natural
selection ” are not employed ; but it is the true natural
selection which (if so metaphorical an expression is
allowed to pass) actually does take place with the
results ascribed to it by Lamarck, and not the false
Ckarles-Darwinian natural selection that does not
correspond with facts, and cannot result in specific
differences such as we now observe. But, waiving this,
the my’s within which a little rift had begun to show
itself in 1866 might well become as mute in 1869,
as they could become without attracting attention,
when Mr. Darwin saw the passages just quoted, and
the hundred pages or so that lie between them.

I suppose Mr. Darwin cut out the five more my’s
that disappeared in 1872 because he had not yet
fully recovered from his scare, and allowed nine to
remain in order to cover his retreat, and tacitly say
that he had not done anything and knew nothing
whatever about it. Practically, indeed, he had not
retreated, and must have been well aware that he was
only retreating technically ; for he must have known
that the absence of acknowledgment to any earlier
writers in the body of his work, and the presence
of the many passages in which every word conveyed
the impression that the writer claimed descent with
modification, amounted to a claim as much when the
actual word “ my ” had been taken out as while it was
allowed to stand. We took Mr. Darwin at his own
estimate because we could not for a moment suppose

242

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

that a man of means, position, and education, — one,
moreover, who was nothing if he was not unself¬
seeking — could play such a trick upon us while pretend¬
ing to take us into his confidence ; hence the almost
universal belief on the part of the public, of which Pro¬
fessors Haeckel and Ray Lankester and Mr. Grant Allen
alike complain — namely, that Mr. Darwin is the origi¬
nator of the theory of descent, and that his variations
are mainly functional. Men of science must not be
surprised if the readiness with which we responded to
Mr. Darwin’s appeal to our confidence is succeeded by
a proportionate resentment when the peculiar shabbi-
ness of his action becomes more generally understood.
Por myself, I know not which most to wonder at — the
meanness of the writer himself, or the greatness of the
service that, in spite of that meanness, he unquestion¬
ably rendered.

If Mr. Darwin had been dealing fairly by us, when
he saw that we had failed to catch the difference
between the Erasmus-Darwinian theory of descent
through natural selection from among variations that
are mainly functional, and his own alternative theory
of descent through natural selection from among varia¬
tions that are mainly accidental, and, above all, when
he saw we were crediting him with other men’s work,
he would have hastened to set us right. “ It is with
great regret,” he might have written, “ and with no
small surprise, that I find how generally I have been
misunderstood as claiming to be the originator of the
theory of descent with modification ; nothing can be
further from my intention ; the theory of descent has

THE EXCISED “ MY'S."

2+3

been familiar to all biologists from the year 1749,
when Bnffon advanced it in its most comprehensive
form, to the present day.” If Mr. Darwin had said
something to the above effect, no one would have
questioned his good faith, but it is hardly necessary to
say that nothing of the kind is to be found in any one
of Mr. Darwin’s many books or many editions ; nor
is the reason why the requisite correction was never
made far to seek. For if Mr. Darwin had said as
much as I have put into his mouth above, he should
have said more, and would ere long have been com¬
pelled to have explained to us wherein the difference
between himself and his predecessors precisely lay,
and this would not have been easy. Indeed, if Mr.
Darwin had been quite open with us he would have
had to say much as follows : —

“ I should point out that, according to the evolu¬
tionists of the last century, improvement in the eye,
as in any other organ, is mainly due to persistent,
rational, employment of the organ in question, in such
slightly modified manner as experience and changed
surroundings may suggest. You will have observed
that, according to my system, this goes for very little,
and that the accumulation of fortunate accidents,
irrespectively of the use that may be made of them,
is by far the most important means of modification.
Put more briefly still, the distinction between me and
my predecessors lies in this ; — my predecessors thought
they knew the main normal cause or principle that
underlies variation, whereas I think that there is no
general principle underlying it at all, or that even if

244

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

tliere is, we know liarclly anything about it. This is
my distinctive feature ; there is no deception ; I shall
not consider the arguments of my predecessors, nor
show in what respect they are insufficient ; in fact, I
shall say nothing whatever about them. Please to
understand that I alone am in possession of the master
key that can unlock the bars of the future progress
of evolutionary science ; so great an improvement, in
fact, is my discovery that it justifies me in claiming
the theory of descent generally, and I accordingly
claim it. If you ask me in what my discovery con¬
sists, I reply in this ; — that the variations which we
are all agreed accumulate are caused — by variation.''*
I admit that this is not telling you much about them,
but it is as much as I think proper to say at present ;
above all things, let me caution you against thinking
that there is any principle of general application under¬
lying variation.”

This would have been right. This is what Mr.
Darwin would have had to have said if he had been
frank with us ; it is not surprising, therefore, that he
should have been less frank than miedit have been

wished. I have no doubt that many a time between
1859 and 1882, the year of his death, Mr. Darwin
bitterly regretted his initial error, and would have
been only too thankful to repair it, but he could only
put the difference between himself and the early
evolutionists clearly before his readers at the cost of
seeing his own system come tumbling down like a
pack of cards ; this was more than he could stand,

* See Evolution Old and New, pp. 8, 9.

THE EXCISED “ MY'S.”

245

♦

so lie buried liis face, ostrich-like, in the sand. I
know no more pitiable figure in either literature ' or
science.

As I write these lines (July 1886) I see a para¬
graph in Nature which I take it is intended to convey
the information that Mr. Francis Darwins life and
letters of his father will appear shortly. I can form
no idea whether Mr. F. Darwin’s forthcoming work is
likely to appear before this present volume ; still less
can I conjecture what it may or may not contain ;
but I can give the reader a criterion by which to test
the good faith with which it is written. If Mr. F.
Darwin puts the distinctive feature that differentiates
Mr. 0. Darwin from his predecessors clearly before his
readers, enabling them to seize and carry it away
with them once for all — if he shows no desire to
shirk this question, but, on the contrary, faces it and
throws light upon it, then we shall know that his
work is sincere, whatever its shortcomings may be in
other respects ; and when people are doing their best
to help us and make us understand all that they under¬
stand themselves, a great deal may be forgiven them.
If, on the other hand, we find much talk about the
wonderful light which Mr. Charles Darwin threw on
evolution by his theory of natural selection, without
any adequate attempt to make us understand the
difference between the natural selection, say, of Mr.
Patrick Matthew, and that of his more famous suc¬
cessor, then we may know that we are being trifled
with ; and that an attempt is being again made to
throw dust in our eyes.

( 246 )

CHAPTER XVI

MR. GRANT ALLEN’S “ CHARLES DARWIN.”

It is here that Mr. Grant Allen’s book fails. It is
impossible to believe it written in good faith, with no
end in view, save to make something easy which
might otherwise be found difficult ; on the contrary, it
leaves the impression of having been written with a
desire to hinder ns, as far as possible, from under¬
standing things that Mr. Allen himself understood
perfectly well.

After saying that u in the public mind Mr. Darwin
is perhaps most commonly regarded as the discoverer
and founder of the evolution hypothesis,” he continues
that u the grand idea which he did really originate
was not the idea of ‘ descent with modification/ but
the idea of ‘ natural selection,’ ” and adds that it was
Mr. Darwin’s “ peculiar glory ” to have shown the
“ nature of the machinery ” by which all the variety
of animal and vegetable life might have been produced
by slow modifications in one or more original types.
“ The theory of evolution,” says Mr. Allen, 11 already
existed in a more or less shadowy and undeveloped
shape ; ” it was Mr. Darwin’s “ task in life to raise this

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “ CHARLES DARWIN.” 247

theory from the rank of a mere plausible and happy
guess to the rank of a highly elaborate and almost
universally accepted biological system ” (pp. 3—5).

We all admit the value of Mr. Darwin’s work as
having led to the general acceptance of evolution.
No one who remembers average middle-class opinion
on this subject before i860 will deny that it was Mr.
Darwin who brought us all round to descent with
modification ; but Mr. Allen cannot rightly say that
evolution had only existed before Mr. Darwin’s time
in cc a shadowy, undeveloped state,” or as “ a mere
plausible and happy guess.” It existed in the same form
as that in which most people accept it now, and had
been carried to its extreme development, before Mr.
Darwin’s father had been born. It is idle to talk of
Buffon’ s work as 11 a mere plausible and happy guess,”
or to imply that the first volume of the “ Pliilosophie
Zoologique ” of Lamarck was a less full and sufficient
demonstration of descent with modification than the
“ Origin of Species ” is. It has its defects, shortcomings,
and mistakes, but it is an incomparably sounder work
than the “ Origin of Species ; ” and though it contains
the deplorable omission of any reference to Buffon,
Lamarck does not first grossly misrepresent Buffon,
and then tell him to go away, as Mr. Darwin did
to the author of the u Vestiges ” and to Lamarck. If
Mr. Darwin was believed and honoured for saying
much the same as Lamarck had said, it was because
Lamarck had borne the brunt of the laughing. The
“ Origin of Species” was possible because the a Ves¬
tiges ” had prepared the way for it. The “ Vestiges ”

248

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

were made possible by Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin,
and these two were made possible by Buffon. Here a
somewhat sharper line can be drawn than is usually
found possible when defining the ground covered by
philosophers. No one broke the ground for Buffon to
anything like the extent that he broke it for those
who followed him, and these broke it for one another.

Mr. Allen says (p. 1 1) that, “in Charles Darwin’s
own words, Lamarck c first did the eminent service of
arousing attention to the probability of all change in
the organic as well as in the inorganic world being
the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’ ”
Mr. Darwin did indeed use these words, but Mr. Allen
omits the pertinent fact that he did not use them till
six thousand copies of his work had been issued, and
an impression been made as to its scope and claims
which the event has shown to be not easily effaced ;
nor does he say that Mr. Darwin only pays these few
words of tribute in a quasi-preface, which, though pre¬
fixed to his later editions of the “ Origin of Species,” is
amply neutralised by the spirit which I have shown to
be omnipresent in the body of the work itself. More¬
over, Mr. Darwin’s statement is inaccurate to an un¬
pardonable extent ; his words would be fairly accurate if
applied to Buffon, but they do not apply to Lamarck.

Mr. Darwin continues that Lamarck “ seems to
attribute all the beautiful adaptations in nature, such
as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on the
branches of trees,” to the effects of habit. Mr. Darwin
should not say that Lamarck “ seems ” to do this. It
was his business to tell us what led Lamarck to his

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “ CHARLES DARWIN.” 24.9

conclusions, not what u seemed ” to do so. Any one
who knows the first volume of the “ Philosophie
Zoologique” will be aware that there is no “ seems” in
the matter. Mr. Darwin’s words “ seem ” to say that
it really could not be worth any practical naturalist’s
while to devote attention to Lamarck’s arguments ;
the inquiry might be of interest to antiquaries, but
Mr. Darwin had more important work in hand than
following the vagaries of one who had been so com¬
pletely exploded as Lamarck had been. “ Seem ” is
to men what “ feel ” is to women ; women who feel,
and men who grease every other sentence with a
“ seem,” are alike to be looked on with distrust.

“ Still,” continues Mr. Allen, “ Darwin gave no sign.
A flaccid, cartilaginous, unphilosophic evolutionism had
full possession of the field for the moment, and claimed,
as it were, to be the genuine representative of the
young and vigorous biological creed, while he himself
was in truth the real heir to all the honours of the
situation. He was in possession of the master-key
which alone could unlock the bars that opposed the
progress of evolution, and still he waited. He could
afford to wait. He was diligently collecting, amass¬
ing, investigating ; eagerly reading every new syste¬
matic work, every book of travels, every scientific
journal, every record of sport, or exploration, or dis¬
covery, to extract from the dead mass of undigested
fact whatever item of implicit value might swell the
definite co-ordinated series of notes in his own common¬
place books for the now distinctly contemplated ‘ Origin
of Species.’ His way was, to make all sure behind

250

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

him, to summon up all his facts in irresistible array,
and never to set out upon a public progress until he
was secure against all possible attacks • of the ever-
watchful and alert enemy in the rear,” &c. (p. y 3).

It would not be easy to beat this. Mr. Darwin’s worst
enemy could wish him no more damaging eulogist.

Of the 11 Vestiges ” Mr. Allen says that Mr. Darwin
u felt sadly ” the inaccuracy and want of profound
technical knowledge everywhere displayed by the
anonymous author. Nevertheless, long after, in the
“ Origin of Species,” the great naturalist wrote with
generous appreciation of the “ Vestiges of Creation ”
— u In my opinion it has done excellent service in
this country in calling attention to the subject, in
removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground
for the reception of analogous views.”

I have already referred to the way in which Mr.
Darwin treated the author of the “ Vestiges,” and have
stated the facts at greater length in “ Evolution Old
and New,” but it may be as well to give Mr. Darwin’s
words in full ; he wrote as follows on the third page
of the original edition of the “ Origin of Species ” : —

“ The author of the c Vestiges of Creation’ would, I
presume, say that, after a certain unknown number of
generations, some bird had given birth to a wood¬
pecker, and some plant to the mistletoe, and that
these had been produced perfect as we now see them ;
but this assumption seems to me to be no explanation,
for it leaves the case of the coadaption of organic
beings to each other and to their physical conditions
of life untouched and unexplained.”

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “ CHARLES DARWIN .” 251

The author of the “ Yestiges ” did, doubtless, suppose
that “ some bird ” had given birth to a woodpecker, or
more strictly, that a couple of birds had done so —
and this is all that Mr. Darwin has committed himself
to — but no one better knew that these two birds
would, according to the author of the u Yestiges,” be
just as much woodpeckers, and just as little wood¬
peckers, as they would be with Mr. Darwin himself.
Mr. Chambers did not suppose that a woodpecker
became a woodpecker 'per saltum though born of some
widely different bird, but Mr. Darwin’s words have no
application unless they convey this impression. The
reader will note that though the impression is con¬
veyed, Mr. Darwin avoids conveying it categorically.
I suppose this is what Mr. Allen means by saying that
he u made all things sure behind him.” Mr. Chambers
did indeed believe in occasional sports ; so did Mr.
Darwin, and we have seen that in the later editions of
the “ Origin of Species ” he found himself constrained
to lay greater stress on these than he had originally
done. Substantially, Mr. Chambers held much the
same opinion as to the suddenness or slowness of
modification as Mr. Darwin did, nor can it be doubted
that Mr. Darwin knew this perfectly well.

What I have said about the woodpecker applies also
to the mistletoe. Besides, it was Mr. Darwin’s busi¬
ness not to “ presume ” anything about the matter ;
his business was to tell us what the author of the
“ Yestiges ” had said, or to refer us to the page of the
“ Yestiges ” on which we should find this. I suppose
he was too busy “ collecting, amassing, investigating,”

252

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

&c., to be at much pains not to misrepresent those
who had been in the field before him. There is no
other reference to the “Vestiges” in. the “Origin of
Species ” than this suave but singularly fraudulent
passage.

In his edition of i860 the author of the “ Vestiges ”
showed that he was nettled, and said it was to be
regretted Mr. Darwin had read the “ Vestiges ” “ almost
as much amiss as if, like its declared opponents, he
had an interest in misunderstanding it ; ” and a little
lower he adds that Mr. Darwin’s book “in no essential
respect contradicts the ‘ Vestiges,’ ” but that, on the
contrary, “ while adding to its explanations of nature,
it expressed the same general ideas.” This is sub¬
stantially true ; neither Mr. Darwin’s nor Mr. Cham¬
bers’s are good books, but the main object of both is
to substantiate the theory of descent with modifica¬
tion, and, bad as the “ Vestiges ” is, it is ingenuous as
compared with the “ Origin of Species.” Subsequently
to Mr. Chambers’s protest, and not till, as I have
said, six thousand copies of the “ Origin of Species ”
had been issued, the sentence complained of by Mr.
Chambers was expunged, but without a word of re¬
tractation, and the passage which Mr. Allen thinks so
generous was inserted into the “brief but imperfect”
sketch which Mr. Darwin prefixed — after Mr. Cham¬
bers had been effectually snuffed out — to all subsequent
editions of his “ Origin of Species.” There is no excuse
for Mr. Darwin’s not having said at least this much
about the author of the “ Vestiges ” in his first edition ;

* Vestiges, &c., ed. 1S60; Proofs, Illustrations, &c., p. xiv.

MR. GRANT ALLEN’S “ CHARLES DARWIN .” 253

and on finding that lie had misrepresented him in a
passage which he did not venture to retain, he should
not have expunged it quietly, hut should have called
attention to his mistake in the body of his book, and
given every prominence in his power to the correction.

Let us now examine Mr. Allen’s record in the matter
of natural selection. For years he was one of the
foremost apostles of Neo-Darwinism, and any who said
a good word for Lamarck were told that this was the
u kind of mystical nonsense ” from which Mr. Allen
u had hoped Mr. Darwin had for ever saved us.” *
Then in October 1883 came an article in “ Mind,”
from which it appeared as though Mr. Allen had abjured
Mr. Darwin and all his works.

“ There are only two conceivable ways,” he then
wrote, “ in which any increment of brain power can
ever have arisen in any individual. The one is the
Darwinian way, by spontaneous variation, that is to
say, by variation due to minute physical circumstances
affecting the individual in the germ. The other is
the Spencerian way, by functional increment, that is
to say, by the effect of increased use and constant
exposure to varying circumstances during conscious
life.”

Mr. Allen calls this the Spencerian view, and so it
is in so far as that Mr. Spencer has adopted it. Most
people will call it Lamarckian. This, however, is a
detail. Mr. Allen continues : —

“ I venture to think that the first way, if we look it
clearly in the face, will be seen to be practically un-

* Examiner, May 17, 1879, review of “Evolution Old and New.”

254

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

thinkable ; and that we have no alternative, therefore,
but to accept the second.”

I like our looking a “ way ” which is u practically
unthinkable ” “ clearly in the face.” I particularly
like u practically unthinkable.” I suppose we can think
it in theory, but not in practice. I like almost every¬
thing Mr. Allen says or does ; it is not necessary to
go far in search of his good things ; dredge up any
bit of mud from him at random and we are pretty sure
to find an oyster with a pearl in it, if we look it
clearly in the face ; I mean, there is sure to be some¬
thing which will be at any rate u almost ” practically
unthinkable. But however this may be, when Mr.
Allen wrote his article in “ Mind ” two years ago, he
was in substantial agreement with myself about the
value of natural selection as a means of modification
— by natural selection I mean, of course, the commonly
known Ckarles-Darwinian natural selection from for¬
tuitous variations; now, however, in 1885, he is
for this same natural selection again, and in the preface
to his “ Charles Darwin ” writes (after a handsome
acknowledgment of u Evolution Old and New ”) that
he “ differs from ” me “ fundamentally in ” my “ estimate
of the worth of Charles Darwin’s distinctive discovery
of natural selection.”

This he certainly does, for on page 8 1 of the work
itself he speaks of “ the distinctive notion of natural
selection ” as having, “ like all true and fruitful ideas,
more than once flashed,” &c. I have explained usque
ad nauseam , and will henceforth explain no longer, that
natural selection is no “ distinctive notion ” of Mr.

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “ CHARLES DARWIN .”

255

Darwin’s. Mr. Darwin’s “distinctive notion” is natural
selection from among fortuitous variations.

Writing again (p. 89) of Mr. Spencer’s essay in the
“ Leader,” Mr. Allen says : — ■

“ It contains, in a very philosophical and abstract
form, the theory of c descent with modification ’ without
the distinctive Darwinian adjunct of c natural selection ’
or survival of the fittest. Yet it was just that lever
dexterously applied, and carefully weighted with the
whole weight of his endlessly accumulated inductive
instances, that finally enabled our modern Archimedes
to move the world.”

Again : —

a To account for adaptation, for the almost perfect
fitness of every plant and every animal to its position
in life, for the existence (in other words) of definitely
correlated parts and organs, wTe must call in the aid
of survival of the fittest. Without that potent selective
agent, our conception of the becoming of life is a mere
chaos ; order and organisation are utterly inexplicable
save by the brilliant illuminating ray of the Darwinian
principle” (p. 93).

And yet two years previously this same principle,
after having been thinkable for many years, had be¬
come u unthinkable.”

Two years previously, writing of the Charles-Dar-
winian scheme of evolution, Mr. Allen had implied it as
his opinion a that all brains are what they are in virtue
of antecedent function.” “ The one creed,” he wrote —
referring to Mr. Darwin’s — “ makes the man depend

* Given in part in “ Evolution Old and New.”

256

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

mainly upon the accidents of molecular physics in a
colliding germ cell and sperm cell ; the other makes
him depend mainly on the doings and gains of his
ancestors as modified and altered by himself.”

This second creed is pure Erasmus-Darwinism and
Lamarck.

Again : —

“ It seems to me easy to understand how survival
of the fittest may result in progress starting from such
functionally produced gains (italics mine), but im¬
possible to understand how it could result in progress,
if it had to start in mere accidental structural incre¬
ments due to spontaneous variation alone.” *

Which comes to saying that it is easy to understand
the Lamarckian system of evolution, but not the
Charles-Darwinian. Mr. Allen concluded his article
a few pages later on by saying : —

“ The first hypothesis ” (Mr. Darwin’s) “ is one that
throws no light upon any of the facts. The second
hypothesis ” (which is unalloyed Erasmus Darwin and
Lamarck) “ is one that explains them all with tran¬
sparent lucidity.” Yet in his “ Charles Darwin ” Mr.
Allen tells us that though Mr. Darwin “ did not invent
the development theory, he made it believable and
comprehensible ” (p. 4).

In his “ Charles Darwin ” Mr. Allen does not tell us
how recently he had, in another place, expressed an
opinion about the value of Mr. Darwin’s u distinctive
contribution ” to the theory of evolution, so widely
different from the one he is now expressing with

* Mind, p. 498, Oct. 18S3.

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “CHARLES DARWIN .” 257

characteristic appearance of ardour. He does not ex¬
plain how he is able to execute such rapid changes
of front without forfeiting his claim on our attention ;
explanations on matters of this sort seem out of date
with modern scientists. I can only suppose that Mr.
Allen regards himself as having taken a brief, as it
were, for the production of a popular work, and feels
more bound to consider the interests of the gentleman
who pays him than to say what he really thinks ; for
surely Mr. Allen would not have written as he did in
such a distinctly philosophical and scientific journal
as “ Mind ” without weighing his words, and nothing
has transpired lately, apropos of evolution, which will
account for his present recantation. I said in my book,
u Selections,” &c., that when Mr. Allen made stepping-
stones of his dead selves, he jumped upon them to
some tune. I was a little scandalised then at the com¬
pleteness and suddenness of the movement he executed,
and spoke severely; I have sometimes feared I may
have spoken too severely, but his recent performance
goes far to warrant my remarks.

If, however, there is no dead self about it, and Mr.
Allen has only taken a brief, I confess to being not
greatly edified. I grant that a good case can be made
out for an author’s doing as I suppose Mr. Allen to
have done ; indeed I am not sure that both science
and religion would not gain if every one rode his
neighbour’s theory, as at a donkey-race, and the least
plausible were held to win ; but surely, as things stand,
a writer by the mere fact of publishing a book professes

to be giving a bond fide opinion. The analogy of the

258

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

bar does not hold, for not only is it perfectly under¬
stood that a barrister does not necessarily state his own
opinions, but there exists a strict though unwritten
code to protect the public against the abuses to which
such a system must be liable. In religion and science
no such code exists — the supposition being that these
two holy callings are above the necessity for anything
of the kind. Science and religion are not as business
is ; still, if the public do not wish to be taken in, they
must be at some pains to find out whether they are in
the hands of one who, while pretending to be a judge,
is in reality a paid advocate, with no one’s interests at
heart except his client’s, or in those of one who, how¬
ever warmly he may plead, will say nothing but what
springs from mature and genuine conviction.

The present unsettled and unsatisfactory state of
the moral code in this respect is at the bottom of the
supposed antagonism between religion and science.
These two are not, or never ought to be, antagonistic.
They should never want what is spoken of as recon¬
ciliation, for in reality they are one. Eeligion is the
quintessence of science, and science the raw material
of religion ; when people talk about reconciling reli¬
gion and science they do not mean what they say ;
they mean reconciling the statements made by one set
of professional men with those made by another set
whose interests lie in the opposite direction — and with
no recognised president of the court to keep them
within due bounds this is not always easy.

Mr. Allen says : —

u At the same time it must be steadily remembered

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “CHARLES DARWIN.” 259

that there are many naturalists at the present day,
especially among those of the lower order of intelli¬
gence, who, while accepting evolutionism in a general
way, and therefore always describing themselves as
Darwinians, do not believe, and often cannot even
understand, the distinctive Darwinian addition to the
evolutionary doctrine — namely, the principle of natural
selection. Such hazy and indistinct thinkers as these
are still really at the prior stage of Lamarckian evolu¬
tion ” (p. 199).

Considering; that Mr. Allen was at that stage
himself so recently, he might deal more tenderly
with others who still find a the distinctive Darwinian
adjunct” “ unthinkable.” It is perhaps, however,
because he remembers his difficulties that Mr. Allen
goes on as follows : —

“ It is probable that in the future, while a formal
acceptance of Darwinism becomes general, the special
theory of natural selection will be thoroughly under¬
stood and assimilated only by the more abstract and
philosophical minds.”

By the kind of people, in fact, who read the
Spectator and are called thoughtful ; and in point of
fact less than a twelvemonth after this passage was
written, natural selection was publicly abjured as “ a
theory of the origin of species ” by Mr. Romanes him¬
self, with the implied approval of the Times.

u Thus,” continues Mr. Allen, “ the name of Darwin
will often no doubt be tacked on to what are in reality
the principles of Lamarck.”

It requires no great power of prophecy to foretell

260

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

this, considering that it is done daily by nine out of
ten who call themselves Darwinians. Ask ten people
of ordinary intelligence how Mr. Darwin explains the
fact that giraffes have long necks, and nine of them
will answer “ through continually stretching them to
reach higher and higher boughs.” They do not under¬
stand that this is the Lamarckian view of evolution,
not the Darwinian ; nor will Mr. Allen’s book greatly
help the ordinary reader to catch the difference between
the two theories, in spite of his frequent reference to
Mr. Darwin’s “ distinctive feature,” and to his “ master-
key.” No doubt the British public will get to under¬
stand all about it some day, but it can hardly be
expected to do so all at once, considering the way in
which Mr. Allen and so many more throw dust in its
eyes, and will doubtless continue to throw it as long
as an honest penny is to be turned by doing so. Mr.
Allen, then, is probably right in saying that “ the
name of Darwin will no doubt be often tacked on to
what are in reality the principles of Lamarck,” nor
can it be denied that Mr. Darwin, by his practice of
using “ the theory of natural selection ” as though it
were a synonym for u the theory of descent with modi¬
fication,” contributed to this result.

I do not myself doubt that he intended to do this,
but Mr. Allen would say no less confidently he did not.
He writes of Mr. Darwin as follows : —

“ Of Darwin’s pure and exalted moral nature no
Englishman of the present generation can trust him¬
self to speak with becoming moderation.”

He proceeds to trust himself thus : —

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “CHARLES DARWIN 261

“ His love of truth, liis singleness of heart, his
sincerity, his earnestness, his modesty, his candour,
his absolute sinking of self and selfishness, — these,
indeed are all conspicuous to every reader on the very
face of every word he ever printed.”

This “ conspicuous sinking of self” is of a piece with
the u delightful unostentatiousness which every one must
have noticed ” about which Mr. Allen writes on page 65.
Does he mean that Mr. Darwin was “ ostentatiously
unostentatious,” or that he was “ unostentatiously osten¬
tatious ? ” I think we may guess from this passage who
it was that in the old days of the Pall Mall Gazette
called Mr. Darwin u a master of a certain happy
simplicity.”

Mr. Allen continues : —

<c Like his works themselves, they must long outlive
him. But his sympathetic kindliness, his ready gene¬
rosity, the staunchness of his friendship, the width and
depth and breadth of his affections, the manner in
which c he bore with those who blamed him unjustly
without blaming them again ’ — these things can never
be so well known to any other generation of men as
to the three generations that walked the world with
him” (pp. 174, 175).

Again : —

“ He began early in life to collect and arrange
a vast encyclopaedia of facts, all finally focussed
with supreme skill upon the great principle he so
clearly perceived and so lucidly expounded. He
brought to bear upon the question an amount of per¬
sonal observation, of minute experiment, of world-wide

262

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

book knowledge, of universal scientific ability, such
as never, perhaps, was lavished by any other man
upon any other department of study. His conspicuous
and beautiful love of truth, his unflinching candour,
his transparent fearlessness and honesty of purpose,
his childlike simplicity, his modesty of demeanour,
his charming manner, his affectionate disposition, his
kindliness to friends, his courtesy to opponents, his
gentleness to harsh and often bitter assailants, kindled
in the minds of men of science everywhere throughout
the world a contagious enthusiasm only equalled per¬
haps among the disciples of Socrates and the great
teachers of the revival of learning. His name became
a rallying-point for the children of light in every
country” (pp. 196, 197).

I need not quote more ; the sentence goes on to
talk about u firmly grounding ” something which philo¬
sophers and speculators might have taken a century or
two more “ to establish in embryo ; ” but those who wish
to see it must turn to Mr. Allen’s book.

If I have formed too severe an estimate of Mr. Dar¬
win’s work and character — and this is more than likely —
the fulsomeness of the adulation lavished on him by his
admirers for many years past must be in some measure
my excuse. We grow tired even of hearing Aristides
called just, but what is so freely said about Mr. Darwin
puts us in mind more of what the people said about
Herod — that he spoke with the voice of a God, not of
a man. So we saw Professor Ray Lankester hail him
not many years ago as the “ greatest of living men.” vr

* Degeneration, 1880, p. 10.

MR. GRANT ALLEN'S “CHARLES DARWIN.” 263

It is ill for any man’s fame that lie should be praised
so extravagantly. Nobody ever was as good as Mr.
Darwin looked, and a counterblast to such a hurricane
of praise as has been lately blowing will do no harm
to his ultimate reputation, even though it too blow
somewhat fiercely. Art, character, literature, religion,
science (I have named them in alphabetical order),
thrive best in a breezy, bracing air ; I heartily hope
I may never be what is commonly called successful
in my own lifetime — and if I go on as I am doing
now, I have a fair chance of succeeding in not suc¬
ceeding.

( 264 )

CHAPTER XVII.

PROFESSOR RAY LANKESTER AND LAMARCK.

Being anxious to give the reader a sample of the
arguments against the theory of natural selection from
among variations that are mainly either directly or
indirectly functional in their inception, or more briefly
against the Erasmus- Darwinian and Lamarckian sys¬
tems, I can find nothing more to the point, or more
recent, than Professor Ray Lankester’s letter to the
Atlienceum of March 29, 1884, to the latter part of
which, however, I need alone call attention. Professor
Ray Lankester says : —

“ And then we are introduced to the discredited
speculations of Lamarck, which have found a worthy
advocate in Mr. Butler, as really solid contributions to
the discovery of the verce causco of variation ! A much
more important attempt to do something for Lamarck’s
hypothesis, of the transmission to offspring of structural
peculiarities acquired by the parents, was recently
made by an able and experienced naturalist, Professor
Semper of Wurzburg. His book on “Animal Life,’’
&c., is published in the c International Scientific Series.’
Professor Semper adduces an immense number and

PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 265

variety of cases of structural change in animals and
plants brought about in the individual by adaptation
(during its individual life-history) to new conditions.
Some of these are very marked changes, such as the
loss of its horny coat in the gizzard of a pigeon fed on
meat ; but in no single instance could Professor Semper
show — although it was his object and desire to do so
if possible — that such change was transmitted from
parent to offspring. Lamarckism looks all very well
on paper, but, as Professor Semper’s book shows, when
put to the test of observation and experiment it col¬
lapses absolutely.”

I should have thought it would have been enough if it
had collapsed without the “ absolutely,” but Professor
Ray Lankester does not like doing things by halves.
Few will be taken in by the foregoing quotation, ex¬
cept those who do not greatly care whether they are
taken in or not ; but to save trouble to readers who
may have neither Lamarck nor Professor Semper at
hand, I will put the case as follows : —

Professor Semper writes a book to show, we will say,
that the hour-hand of the clock moves gradually for¬
ward, in spite of its appearing stationary. He makes
his case sufficiently clear, and then might have been
content to leave it ; nevertheless, in the innocence of
his heart, he adds the admission that though he had
often looked at the clock for a long time together, he
had never been able actually to see the hour-hand
moving. “ There now,” exclaims Professor Ray Lan¬
kester on this, c: I told you so ; the theory collapses
absolutely; his whole object and desire is to show that

266

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

the hour-hand moves, and yet when it comes to the
point, he is obliged to confess that he cannot see it do
so.” It is not worth while to meet what Professor
Ray Lankester has been above quoted as saying about
Lamarckism beyond by quoting the following passage
from a review of “ The Neanderthal Skull on Evolution ”
in the “ Monthly Journal of Science” for June 1885
(p. 362): —

“ On the very next page the author reproduces the
threadbare obj ection that the ‘supporters of the theory
have never yet succeeded in observing a single in¬
stance in all the millions of years invented (!) in its
support of one species of animal turning into another.’
Now, ex hypothesis one species turns into another not
rapidly, and as in a transformation scene, but in suc¬
cessive generations, each being born a shade different
from its progenitors. Hence to observe such a change
is excluded by the very terms of the question. Does
Mr. Saville forget Mr. Herbert Spencer’s apologue
of the ephemeron which had never witnessed the
change of a child into a man ? ”

The apologue, I may say in passing, is not Mr.
Spencer’s; it is by the author of the “Vestiges,” and
will be found on p. 1 6 1 of the 1853 edition of that
book ; but let this pass. How impatient Professor Ray
Lankester is of any attempt to call attention to the
older view of evolution appears perhaps even more
plainly in a review of this same book of Professor
Semper’s that appeared in “Nature,” March 3, 1881.
The tenor of the remarks last quoted shows that though
what I am about to quote is now more than five years

PROFESSOR LANK ESTER AND LAMARCK. 267

old, it may be taken as still giving us tlie position
which Professor Ray Lankester takes on these matters.
He wrote : —

“ It is necessary,” he exclaims, u to plainly and
emphatically state ” (Why so much emphasis ? Why
not “ it should be stated ” ?) u that Professor Semper
and a few other writers of similar views ” * (I have sent
for the number of “ Modern Thought ” referred to by
Professor Ray Lankester, but find no article by Mr.
Henslow, and do not, therefore, know what he had said)
“ are not adding to or building on Mr. Darwin's
theory, but are actually opposing all that is essential
and distinctive in that theory, by the revival of the
exploded notion of £ directly transforming agents ’
advocated by Lamarck and others.”

It may be presumed that these writers know they
are not “ adding to or building on ” Mr. Darwin’s
theory, and do not wish to build on it, as not thinking
v it a sound foundation. Professor Ray Lankester says
they are “ actually opposing,” as though there were
something intolerably audacious in this*; but it is not
easy to see why he should be more angry with them
for “ actually opposing ” Mr. Darwin than they may be
with him, if they think it worth while, for “ actually
defending ” the exploded notion of natural selection —
for assuredly the Charles-Darwinian system is now
more exploded than Lamarck’s is.

What Professor Ray Lankester says about Lamarck
and “ directly transforming agents ” will mislead those

* E.g., the Rev. George Henslow, in “ Modern Thought,” vol. ii.
No. 5, 1881.

268

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

who take his statement without examination. Lamarck
does not say that modification is effected by means of
“ directly transforming agents ; ” nothing can be more
alien to the spirit of his teaching. With him the
action of the external conditions of existence (and
these are the only transforming agents intended by
Professor Pay Lankester) is not direct, but indirect.
Change in surroundings changes the organism’s outlook,
and thus changes its desires ; desires changing, there is
corresponding change in the actions performed ; actions
changing, a corresponding change is by-and-by induced
in the organs that perform them ; this, if long con¬
tinued, will be transmitted; becoming augmented by ac¬
cumulation in many successive generations, and further
modifications perhaps arising through further changes
in surroundings, the change will amount ultimately to
specific and generic difference. Lamarck knows no
drug, nor operation, that will medicine one organism
into another, and expects the results of adaptive effort
to be so gradual as to be only perceptible when ac¬
cumulated in the course of many generations. When,
therefore, Professor Pay Lankester speaks of Lamarck
as having “ advocated directly transforming agents,”
he either does not know what he is talking about, or
he is trifling with his readers. Professor Pay Lan¬
kester continues : —

“They do not seem to be aware of this, for they
make no attempt to examine Mr. Darwin’s accumulated
facts and arguments.” Professor Pay Lankester need
not shake Mr. Darwin’s “ accumulated facts and argu¬
ments ” at us. We have taken more pains to under-

PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK . 269

stand them than Professor Ray Lankester has taken
to understand Lamarck, and by this time know them
sufficiently. We thankfully accept by far the greater
number, and rely on them as our sheet-anchors to
save us from drifting on to the quicksands of Neo-
Darwinian natural selection ; few of them, indeed,
are Mr. Darwin’s, except in so far as he has endorsed
them and given them publicity, but I do not know
that this detracts from their value. We have paid
great attention to Mr. Darwin’s facts, and if we do not
understand all his arguments — for it is not always
given to mortal man to understand these — yet we
think we know what he was driving at. We believe
we understand this to the full as well as Mr. Darwin
intended us to do, and perhaps better. Where the
arguments tend to show that all animals and plants
are descended from a common source we find them
much the same as Buffon’s, or as those of Erasmus
Darwin or Lamarck, and have nothing to say
against them ; where, on the other hand, they aim at
proving that the main means of modification has been
the fact that if an animal has been “ favoured ” it will
be “ preserved ” — then we think that the animal’s own
exertions will, in the long run, have had more to do
with its preservation than any real or fancied “ favour.”
Professor Ray Lankester continues : —

u The doctrine of evolution has become an accepted
truth ” (Professor Ray Lankester writes as though the
making of truth and falsehood lay in the hollow of
Mr. Darwin’s hand. Surely “ has become accepted ”
should be enough ; Mr. Darwin did not make the

2JO

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

doctrine true) “ entirely in consequence of Mr. Darwin’s
having demonstrated the mechanism ” (There is no
mechanism in the matter, and if there is, Mr. Darwin
did not show it. He made some words which con¬
fused us and prevented us from seeing that “ the pre¬
servation of favoured races ” was a cloak for “ luck,”
and that this was all the explanation he was giving)
“ by which the evolution is possible ; it was almost
universally rejected, while such undemonstrable agen¬
cies as those arbitrarily asserted to exist by Professor
Semper and Mr. George Henslow were the only means
suggested by its advocates.”

Undoubtedly the theory of descent with modifica¬
tion, which received its first sufficiently ample and
undisguised exposition in 1809 with the “ Philosophie
Zoologique ” of Lamarck, shared the common fate of all
theories that revolutionise opinion on important matters,
and was fiercely opposed by the Huxley’s, Romanes’s,
Grant Allens, and Ray Lankesters of its time. It had
to face the reaction in favour of the Church which
began in the days of the first empire, as a natural
consequence of the horrors of the revolution ; it had to
face the social influence and then almost Darwinian
reputation of Cuvier, whom Lamarck could not, or
would not, square ; it was put forward by one who was
old, poor, and ere long blind. What theory could do
more than just keep itself alive under conditions so
unfavourable ? Even under the most favourable con¬
ditions descent with modification would have been a
hard plant to rear, but, as things were, the wonder is
that it was not killed outright at once. We all know

PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 271

how large a sliare social influences have in deciding
what kind of reception a hook or theory is to meet
with ; true, these influences are not permanent, hut at
first they are almost irresistible ; in reality it was not
the theory of descent that was matched against that
of fixity, hut Lamarck against Cuvier ; who can be
surprised that Cuvier for a time should have had the
best of it ?

And yet it is pleasant to reflect that his triumph
was not, as triumphs go, long lived. How is Cuvier
best known now ? As one who missed a great oppor¬
tunity ; as one who was great in small things, and
stubbornly small in great ones. Lamarck died in
1831; in 1861 descent with modification was almost
universally accepted by those most competent to form
an opinion. This result was by no means so exclu¬
sively due to Mr. Darwin’s “ Origin of Species ” as
is commonly believed. During the thirty years that
followed 1831 Lamarck’s opinions made more way
than Darwinians are willing to allow. Granted that
in 1861 the theory was generally accepted under the
name of Darwin, not under that of Lamarck, still it
was Lamarck and not Darwin that was being accepted ;
it was descent, not descent with modification by means of
natural selection from among fortuitous variations, that
we carried away with us from the “ Origin of Species.”
The thing triumphed whether the name was lost or not.
I need not waste the reader’s time by showing further
how little weight he need attach to the fact that
Lamarckism was not immediately received with open
arms by an admiring public. The theory of descent

272

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

lias become accepted as rapidly, if I am not mistaken,
as the Copernican theory, or as Newton’s theory of
gravitation.

When Professor Pay Lankester goes on to speak of
the u nn demonstrable agencies ” “ arbitrarily asserted ”
to exist by Professor Semper, he is again presuming
on the ignorance of his readers. Professor Semper’s
agencies are in no way more undemonstrable than Mr.
Darwin’s are. Mr. Darwin was perfectly cogent as long
as he stuck to Lamarck’s demonstration ; his arguments
were sound as long as they were Lamarck’s, or develop¬
ments of, and riders upon, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin,

and Lamarck, and almost incredibly silly when they
were his own. Fortunately the greater part of the
“ Origin of Species ” is devoted to proving the theory
of descent with modification, by arguments against
which no exception would have been taken by Mr.
Darwin’s three great precursors, except in so far as the
variations whose accumulation results in specific differ¬
ence are supposed to be fortuitous — and, to do Mr.
Darwin justice, the fortuitousness, though always within
hail, is kept as far as possible in the background.

“ Mr. Darwin’s arguments,” says Professor Pay Lan¬
kester, “ rest on the proved existence of minute, many-
sided, irrelative variations not produced by directly
transforming agents.” Mr. Darwin throughout the
body of the “ Origin of Species ” is not supposed to
know what his variations are or are not produced by ;
if they come, they come, and if they do not come, they
do not come. True, we have seen that in the last para¬
graph of the book all this was changed, and the varia-

PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 273

tions were ascribed to the conditions of existence, and
to use and disuse, but a concluding paragraph cannot
be allowed to override a whole book throughout which
the variations have been kept to hand as accidental.
Mr. Eomanes is perfectly correct when he says * that
“ natural selection ” (meaning the Charles-Darwinian
natural selection) “ trusts to the chapter of accidents
in the matter of variation ; ” this is all that Mr. Darwin
can tell us ; whether they come from directly trans¬
forming agents or no he neither knows nor says.
Those who accept Lamarck will know that the agen¬
cies are not, as a rule, directly transforming, but the
followers of Mr. Darwin cannot.

“ But showing themselves,” continues Professor Pay
Lankester, “ at each new act of reproduction, as part
of the phenomena of heredity. Such minute c sports ’
or c variations ’ are due to constitutional disturbance ”
(No doubt. The difference, however, between Mr.
Darwin and Lamarck consists in the fact that Lamarck
believes he knows what it is that so disturbs the con¬
stitution as generally to induce variation, whereas Mr.
Darwin says he does not know), “ and appear not in
individuals subjected to new conditions ” (What orga¬
nism can pass through life without being subjected to
more or less new conditions ? What life is ever the
exact fac-simile of another ? And in a matter of such
extreme delicacy as the adjustment of psychical and
physical relations, who can say how small a disturb¬
ance of established equilibrium may not involve how
great a rearrangement ?), “ but in the offspring of all,

* Nature, Aug. 6, 1886.

274

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

though more freely in the offspring of those subjected to
special causes of constitutional disturbance. Mr. Darwin
has further proved that these slight variations can be
transmitted and intensified by selective breeding.”

Mr. Darwin did, indeed, follow Buffon and Lamarck
in at once turning to animals and plants under domes¬
tication in order to bring the plasticity of organic
forms more easily home to his readers, but the fact
that variations can be transmitted and intensified by
selective breeding had been so well established and
was so widely known long before Mr. Darwin was
born, that he can no more be said to have proved it
than Newton can be said to have proved the revolution
of the earth on its own axis. Every breeder through¬
out the world had known it for centuries. I believe
even Virgil knew it.

“ They have,” continues Professor Pay Lankester,
“ in reference to breeding, a remarkably tenacious, per¬
sistent character, as might be expected from their
origin in connection with the reproductive process.”

The variations do not normally “ originate in con¬
nection with the reproductive process,” though it is
during this process that they receive organic expres¬
sion. They originate mainly, so far as anything origi¬
nates anywhere, in the life of the parent or parents.
Without going so far as to say that no variation can
arise in connection with the reproductive system — for,
doubtless, striking and successful sports do occasionally
so arise — it is more probable that the majority origi¬
nate earlier. Professor Pay Lankester proceeds : —

“On the other hand, mutilations and other effects

PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 275

of directly transforming agents are rarely, if ever, trans¬
mitted. Professor Pmy Lankester ought to know the
facts better than to say that the effects of mutilation
are rarely, if ever, transmitted. The rule is, that they
will not be transmitted unless they have been followed
by disease, but that where disease has supervened
they not uncommonly descend to offspring.'" I know
Brown-Sequard considered it to be the morbid state
of the nervous system consequent upon the muti¬
lation that is transmitted, rather than the immediate
effects of the mutilation, but this distinction is some¬
what finely drawn.

When Professor Pay Lankester talks about the
“ other effects of directly transforming agents ” being
rarely transmitted, he should first show us the directly
transforming agents. Lamarck, as I have said, knows
them not. “It is little short of an absurdity,” he
continues, “ for people to come forward at this epoch,
when evolution is at length accepted solely because of
Mr. Darwin’s doctrine, and coolly to propose to replace
that doctrine by the old notion so often tried and
rejected.”

Whether this is an absurdity or no, Professor Lan¬
kester will do well to learn to bear it without show¬
ing so much warmth, for it is one that is becoming
common. Evolution has been accepted not “ because
of” Mr. Darwin’s doctrine, but because Mr. Darwin so
fogged us about his doctrine that we did not under-
stand it. We thought we were backing his bill for

* See Mr. Darwin’s “ Animals and Plants under Domestication,” vol.
i. p. 466, &c., ed. 1S75.

276

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

descent with modification, whereas we were in reality
backing it for descent with modification by means of
natural selection from among fortuitous variations.
This last really is Mr. Darwin’s theory, except in so
far as it is also Mr. A. R. Wallace’s ; descent, alone,
is just as much and just as little Mr. Darwin’s doctrine
as it is Professor Ray Lankester’s or mine. I grant it
is in great measure through Mr. Darwin’s books that
descent has become so widely accepted ; it has become
so through his books, but in spite of, rather than by
reason of, his doctrine. Indeed his doctrine was no
doctrine, but only a back-door for himself to escape
by in the event of flood or fire ; the flood and fire have
come ; it remains to be seen how7 far the door will
work satisfactorily.

Professor Ray Lankester, again, should not say that
Lamarck’s doctrine has been “ so often tried and
rejected.” M. Martins, in his edition of the “ Philo-
sophie Zoologique,” * said truly that Lamarck’s theory
had never yet had the honour of being seriously dis¬
cussed. It never has — not at least in connection with
the name of its propounder. To mention Lamarck’s
name in the presence of the conventional English
society naturalist has always been like shaking a red
rag at a cow ; he is at once infuriated ; “ as if it were
possible,” to quote from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
whose defence of Lamarck is one of the best things in
his book,+ “that so great labour on the part of so
great a naturalist should have led him to ‘ a fantastic

* Paris, 1873, Introd. p. vi.

t Hist. Nat. Gen., ii. 404, 1859.

PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 277

conclusion ’ only — to ‘ a flighty error,’ and, as has
been often said, though not written, to ‘ one absurdity
the more.’ Such was the language which Lamarck
heard during his protracted old age, saddened alike
by the weight of years and blindness; this was what
people did not hesitate to utter over his grave, yet
barely closed, and what, indeed, they are still saying
— commonly too, without any knowledge of what
Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at second
hand bad caricatures of his teaching.

u When will the time come when we may see
Lamarck’s theory discussed, and I may as well at once
say refuted, in some important points, with at any rate the
respect due to one of the most illustrious masters of our
science ? And when will this theorv, the hardihood of
which has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from
the interpretations and commentaries by the false light
of which so many naturalists have formed their opinion
concerning it ? If its author is to be condemned, let
it, at any rate, not be before he has been heard.”

Lamarck was the Lazarus of biology. I wish his
more fortunate brethren, instead of intoning the old
Church argument that he has “ been refuted over and
over again,” would refer us to some of the best chapters
in the writers who have refuted him. My own read¬
ing has led me to become moderately well acquainted
with the literature of evolution, but I have never come
across a single attempt fairly to grapple with Lamarck,
and it is plain that neither Isidore Geoffroy nor M.
Martins know of such an attempt any more than I do.
When Professor Ray Lankester puts his finger on

278

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

Lamarck’s weak places, then, but not till tlien, may lie
complain of those who try to replace Mr. Darwin’s
doctrine by Lamarck’s.

Professor Pay Lankester concludes his note thus: —

“ That such an attempt should be made is an illus¬
tration of a curious weakness of humanity. Not infre¬
quently, after a long contested cause has triumphed,
and all have yielded allegiance thereto, you will find,
when few generations have passed, that men have
clean forgotten what and who it was that made that
cause triumphant, and ignorantly will set up for
honour the name of a traitor or an impostor, or attri¬
bute to a great man as a merit deeds and thoughts
which he spent a long life in opposing.”

Exactly so ; that is what one rather feels, but surely
Professor Pay Lankester should say “ in trying to
filch while pretending to oppose and to amend.” He
is complaining here that people persistently ascribe
Lamarck’s doctrine to Mr. Darwin. Of course they do ;
but, as I have already perhaps too abundantly asked,
whose fault is this ? If a man knows his own mind,
and wants others to understand it, it is not often that
he is misunderstood for any length of time. If he
finds he is being misapprehended in a way he does not
like, he will write another book and make his meaning
plainer. He will go on doing this for as long time as
he thinks necessary. I do not suppose, for example,
that people will say I originated the theory of descent
by means of natural selection from among fortunate
accidents, or even that I was one of its supporters as
a means of modification ; but if this impression were to

PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 279

prevail, I cannot think I should have much difficulty
in removing it. At any rate no such misapprehension
could endure for more than twenty years, during
which I continued to address a public who welcomed
all I wrote, unless I myself aided and abetted the
mistake. Mr. Darwin wrote many books, but the
impression that Darwinism and evolution, or descent
with modification, are identical is still nearly as pre¬
valent as it was soon after the appearance of the
“ Origin of Species ; ” the reason of this is, that Mr.
Darwin was at no pains to correct us. Where, in
any one of his many later books, is there a passage
which sets the matter in its true light, and enters a
protest against the misconception of which Professor
Pay Lankester complains so bitterly ? The only infer¬
ence from this is, that Mr. Darwin was not displeased
at our thinking him to be the originator of the theory
of descent with modification, and did not want us to
know more about Lamarck than he could help. If we
wanted to know about him, we must find out what he
had said for ourselves, it was no part of Mr. Darwin’s
business to tell us ; he had no interest in our catch¬
ing the distinctive difference between himself and that
writer ; perhaps not ; but this approaches closely to
wishing us to misunderstand it. When Mr. Darwin
wished us to understand this or that, no one knew
better how to show it to us.

We were aware, on reading the “ Origin of Species,”

that there was a something about it of which we had

not full hold ; nevertheless we gave Mr. Darwin our
confidence at once, partly because he led off by telling

2 SO

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

us that we must trust him to a great extent, and
explained that the present book was only an instal¬
ment of a larger work which, when it came out, would
make everything perfectly clear ; partly, again, because
the case for descent with modification, which was the
leading idea throughout the book, was so obviously
strong, but perhaps mainly because every one said Mr.
Darwin was so good, and so much less self-heeding
than other people ; besides, he had so “ patiently ” and
“ carefully ” accumulated “ such a vast store of facts ”
as no other naturalist, living or dead, had ever yet
even tried to get together ; he was so kind to us with
his, “ May we not believe ? ” and his “ Have we any
right to infer that the Creator ? ” &c. “ Of course we

have not,” we exclaimed, almost with tears in our
eyes — “not if you ask us in that way.” Now that
we understand what it was that puzzled us in Mr.
Darwin’s work we do not think highly either of the
chief offender, or*of the accessories after the fact, many
of whom are trying to brazen the matter out, and on
a smaller scale to follow his example.

( 28l )

CHAPTER XVIII.

PER CONTRA.

“ The evil that men do lives after them ” * is happily
not so true as that the good lives after them, while
the ill is buried with their bones, and to no one does
this correction of Shakespeare’s unwonted spleen apply
more fully than to Mr. Darwin. Indeed it was some¬
what thus that we treated his books even while he
was alive ; the good, descent, remained with us, while
the ill, the deification of luck, was forgotten as
soon as we put down his work. Let me now, there¬
fore, as far as possible, quit the ungrateful task of
dwelling on the defects of Mr. Darwin’s work and
character, for the more pleasant one of insisting upon
their better side, and of explaining how he came to be
betrayed into publishing the “ Origin of Species ” with¬
out reference to the works of his predecessors.

In the outset I would urge that it is not by any
single book that Mr. Darwin should be judged. I do
not believe that any one of the three principal works on
which his reputation is founded will maintain with

* As these pages are on the point of going to press, I see that the
writer of an article on Liszt in the Athenceum makes the same emen¬
dation on Shakespeare’s words that I have done.

282

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

the next generation the place it has acquired with
ourselves ; nevertheless, if asked to say who was the
man of our own times whose work had produced the
most important, and, on the whole, beneficial effect, I
should perhaps wrongly, hut still both instinctively
and on reflection, name him to whom I have, unfor¬
tunately, found myself in more hitter opposition than
to any other in the whole course of my life. I refer,
of course, to Mr. Darwin.

His claim upon us lies not so much in what is actu¬
ally found within the four corners of any one of his
books, as in the fact of his having written them at
all — in the fact of his having brought out one after
another, with descent always for its keynote, until
the lesson was learned too thoroughly to make it
at all likely that it will be forgotten. Mr. Darwin
wanted to move his generation, and had the penetra¬
tion to see that this is not done by saying a thing once
for all and leaving it. It almost seems as though it
matters less what a man says than the number of
times he repeats it, in a more or less varied form. It
was here the author of the “Vestiges of Creation”
made his most serious mistake. He relied on new
editions, and no one pays much attention to new
editions — the mark a book makes is almost always
made by its first edition. If, instead of bringing out
a series of amended editions during the fifteen years’
law which Mr. Darwin gave him, Mr. Chambers had
followed up the “Vestiges” with new book upon new
book, he would have learned much more, and, by
consequence, not have been snuffed out so easily once

PER CONTRA.

283

for all as he was in 1859 when the “ Origin of
Species ” appeared.

The tenacity of purpose which appears to have been
one of Mr. Darwin’s most remarkable characteristics
was visible even in his outward appearance. He always
reminded me of Eaffaelle’s portrait of Pope Julius the
Second, which, indeed, would almost do for a portrait
of Mr. Darwin himself. I imagine that these two
men, widely as the sphere of their action differed,
must have been like each other in more respects than
looks alone. Each, certainly, had a hand of iron ;
whether Pope Julius wore a velvet glove or no, I do
not know ; I rather think not, for, if I remember
rightly, he boxed Michael Angelo’s ears for giving him
a saucy answer. We cannot fancy Mr. Darwin box¬
ing any one’s ears ; indeed there can be no doubt he
wore a very thick velvet glove, but the hand under¬
neath it was none the less of iron. It was to his
tenacity of purpose, doubtless, that his success was
mainly due ; but for this he must inevitably have
fallen before the many inducements to desist from the
pursuit of his main object, which beset him in the
shape of ill health, advancing years, ample private
means, large demands upon his time, and a reputation
already great enough to satisfy the ambition of any
ordinary man.

I do not gather from those who remember Mr.
Darwin as a boy, and as a young man, that he
gave early signs of being likely to achieve greatness ;
nor, as it seems to me, is there any sign of unusual
intellectual power to be detected in his earliest book.

284

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

Opening this “ almost ” at random I read — a Earth¬
quakes alone are sufficient to destroy the prosperity of
any country. If, for instance, beneath England the now
inert subterraneous forces should exert those powers
which most assuredly in former geological ages they
have exerted, how completely would the entire con¬
dition of the country be changed ! What would be¬
come of the lofty houses, thickly-packed cities, great
manufacturies (sic), the beautiful public and private
edifices ? If the new period of disturbance were to
commence by some great earthquake in the dead of
night, how terrific would be the carnage ! England
would be at once bankrupt ; all papers, records, and
accounts would from that moment be lost. Govern¬
ment being unable to collect the taxes, and failing
to maintain its authority, the hand of violence and
rapine would go uncontrolled. In every large town
famine would be proclaimed, pestilence and death fol¬
lowing in its train.” * Great allowance should be
made for a first work, and I admit that much interest¬
ing matter is found in Mr. Darwin’s journal ; still, it
was hardly to be expected that the writer who at the
age of thirty-three could publish the foregoing pas¬
sage should twenty years later achieve the reputation
of being the profoundest philosopher of his time.

I have not sufficient technical knowledge to enable
me to speak certainly, but I question his having been
the great observer and master of experiment which he
is generally believed to have been. His accuracy was,
I imagine, generally to be relied upon as long as
* Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. iii. p. 373, London 1839.

PER CONTRA.

285

accuracy did not come into conflict with his interests
as a leader in* the scientific world ; when these were at
stake he was not to be trusted for a moment. Unfor¬
tunately they were directly or indirectly at stake more
often than one could wish. His book on the action
of worms, however, was shown by Professor Paley and
other writers * to contain many serious errors and
omissions, though it involved no personal question ;
but I imagine him to have been more or less hebttd
when he wrote this book. On the whole I should
doubt his having been a better observer of nature than
nine country gentlemen out of ten who have a taste
for natural history.

Presumptuous as I am aware it must appear to say
so, I am unable to see more than average intellectual
power even in Mr. Darwin’s later books. His great
contribution to science is supposed to have been
the theory of natural selection, but enough has been
said to show that this, if understood as he ought to
have meant it to be understood, cannot be rated highly
as an intellectual achievement. His other most impor¬
tant contribution was his provisional theory of pan¬
genesis, which is admitted on all hands to have been a
failure. Though, however, it is not likely that posterity
will consider him as a man of transcendent intellec¬
tual power, he must be admitted to have been richly
endowed with a much more valuable quality than
either originality or literary power — I mean with savoir

* See Professor Paley, “Fraser,” Jan. 1882, “Science Gossip,” Nos.
162, 163, June and July 1878, and “ Nature,” Jan. 3, Jan. 10, Feb. 28,
and March 27, 1S84.

286

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

faire. The cards lie held — and, on the whole, his hand
was a good one — he played with judgment ; and though
not one of those who would have achieved greatness
under any circumstances, he nevertheless did achieve
greatness of no mean order. Greatness, indeed, of the
highest kind — that of one who is without fear and with¬
out reproach — will not ultimately be allowed him, but
greatness of a rare kind can only be denied him by
those whose judgment is perverted by temper or per¬
sonal ill-will. He found the wTorld believing in fixity
of species, and left it believing — in spite of his own
doctrine — in descent with modification.

I have said on an earlier page that Mr. Darwin
was heir to a discredited truth, and left behind him
an accredited fallacy. This is true as regards men of
science and cultured classes who understood his dis¬
tinctive feature, or thought they did, and so long as
Mr. Darwin lived accepted it with very rare excep¬
tions ; but it is not true as regards the unreading,
unreflecting public, who seized the salient point of
descent with modification only, and troubled them¬
selves little about the distinctive feature. It would
almost seem as if Mr. Darwin had reversed the usual
practice of philosophers and given his esoteric doctrine
to the world, while reserving the exoteric for his most
intimate and faithful adherents. This, however, is a
detail ; the main fact is, that Mr. Darwin brought us all
round to evolution. True, it was Mr. Darwin backed
by the Times and the other most influential organs of
science and culture, but it was one of Mr. Darwin’s great
merits to have developed and organised this backing,

PER CONTRA.

2 87

as part of the work which he knew was essential if so
great a revolution was to be effected.

This is an exceedingly difficult and delicate thing
to do. If people think they need only write striking
and well-considered books, and that then the Times
will immediately set to work to call attention to them,
I should advise them not to be too hasty in basing
action upon this hypothesis. I should advise them to
be even less hasty in basing it upon the assumption
that to secure a powerful literary backing is a matter
within the compass of any one who chooses to under¬
take it. JSTo one who has not a strong social position
should ever advance a new theory, unless a life of
hard fighting is part of what he lays himself out for.
It was one of Mr. Darwin’s great merits that he had a
strong social position, and had the good sense to know
how to profit by it. The magnificent feat which he
eventually achieved was unhappily tarnished by much
that detracts from the splendour that ought to have
attended it, but a magnificent feat it must remain.

Whose work in this imperfect world is not tarred
and tarnished by something that detracts from its
ideal character ? It is enough that a man should be
the right man in the right place, and this Mr. Darwin
pre-eminently was. If he had been more like the
ideal character which Mr. Allen endeavours to re¬
present him, it is not likely that he would have been
able to do as much, or nearly as much, as he actually
did ; he would have been too wide a cross with his
generation to produce much effect upon it. Original
thought is much more common than is generally

288

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

believed. Most people, if they only knew it, could
write a good book or play, paint a good picture, com¬
pose a fine oratorio ; but it takes an unusually able
person to get the book well reviewed, persuade a
manager to bring the play out, sell the picture, or
compass the performance of the oratorio ; indeed, the
more vigorous and original any one of these things
may be, the more difficult will it prove to even bring
it before the notice of the public. The error of most
original people is in being just a trifle too original.
It was in his business qualities — and these, after all,
are the most essential to success, that Mr. Darwin
showed himself so superlative. These are not only
the most essential to success, but it is only by blas¬
pheming the world in a way which no good citizen of
the world will do, that we can deny them to be the
ones which should most command our admiration.
We are in the world ; surely so long as we are in it
we should be of it, and not give ourselves airs as
though we were too good for our generation, and
would lay ourselves out to please any other by pre¬
ference. Mr. Darwin played for his own generation,
and he got in the very amplest measure the recogni¬
tion which he endeavoured, as we all do, to obtain.

His success was, no doubt, in great measure due to
the fact that he knew our little ways, and humoured
them ; but if he had not had little ways of his own,
he never could have been so much au fait with ours.
He knew, for example, we should be pleased to hear
that he had taken his boots off so as not to disturb
his worms when watching them by night, so he told

PER CONTRA.

289

us of this, and we were delighted. He knew we
should like his using the word “ sag,” so he used
it,* and we said it was beautiful. True, he used it
wrongly, for he was writing about tesselated pave¬
ment, and builders assure me that “ sag ” is a word
which applies to timber only, but this is not to the
point ; the point was, that Mr. Darwin should have
used a word that we did not understand ; this showed
that he had a vast fund of knowledge at his command
about all sorts of practical details with which he
might have well been unacquainted. We do not deal
the same measure to man and to the lower animals
in the matter of intelligence ; the less we understand
these last, the less, we say, not we, but they can
understand ; whereas the less we can understand a
man, the more intelligent we are apt to think him.
No one should neglect by-play of this description ; if I
live to be strong enough to carry it through, I mean
to play “ cambre,” and I shall spell it “ camber.” I
wonder Mr. Darwin never abused this word. Laugh
at him, however, as we may for having said “sag,” if
he had not been the kind of man to know the value
of these little hits, neither would he have been the
kind of man to persuade us into first tolerating, and
then cordially accepting, descent with modification.
There is a correlation of mental as well as of physical
growth, and we could not probably have had one set
of Mr. Darwin’s qualities without the other. If he
had been more faultless, he might have written better
books, but we should have listened worse. A book’s

* Formation of Vegetable Mould, &c., p. 217 Murray, 18S2.

290

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

prosperity is like a jest’s — in the ear of him that
hears it.

Mr. Spencer would not — at least one cannot think
he would — have been able to effect the revolution
which will henceforth doubtless be connected with
Mr. Darwin’s name. He had been insisting on evolu¬
tion for some years before the “ Origin of Species ”
came out, but he might as well have preached to the
winds, for all the visible effect that had been produced.
On the appearance of Mr. Darwin’s book the effect
was instantaneous ; it was like the change in the con¬
dition of a patient when the right medicine has been
hit on after all sorts of things have been tried and
failed. Granted that it was comparatively easy for
Mr. Darwin, as having been born into the household
of one of the prophets of evolution, to arrive at con¬
clusions about the fixity of species which, if not so
born, he might never have reached at all; this does
not make it any easier for him to have got others to
agree with him. Any one, again, may have money
left him, or run up against it, or have it run up
against him, as it does against some people, but it
is only a very sensible person who does not lose it.
Moreover, once begin to go behind achievement and
there is an end of everything. Did the world give
much heed to or believe in evolution before Mr.
Darwin’s time ? Certainly not. Did we begin to
attend and be persuaded soon after Mr. Darwin began
to write ? Certainly yes. Did we ere long go over
en masse ? Assuredly. If, as I said in “ Life and
Habit,” any one asks who taught the world to

PER CONTRA.

2gi

believe in evolution, the answer to the end of time
must be that it was Mr. Darwin. And yet the more
his work is looked at, the more marvellous does its
success become. It seems as if some organisms can do
anything with anything. Beethoven picked his teeth
with the snuffers, and seems to have picked them
sufficiently to his satisfaction. So Mr. Darwin with
one of the worst styles imaginable did all that the
clearest, tersest writer could have done. Strange, that
such a master of cunning (in the sense of my title)
should have been the apostle of luck, and one so
terribly unlucky as Lamarck, of cunning, but such
is the irony of nature. Buffon planted, Erasmus
Darwin and Lamarck watered, but it was Mr. Darwin
who said, “ That fruit is ripe,” and shook it into
his lap.

With this Mr. Darwin’s best friends ought to be
content ; his admirers are not well advised in repre¬
senting him as endowed with all sorts of qualities
which he was very far from possessing. Thus it is
pretended that he was one of those men who were
ever on the watch for new ideas, ever ready to give a
helping hand to those who were trying to advance our
knowledge, ever willing to own to a mistake and give
up even his most cherished ideas if truth required
them at his hands. LTo conception can be more
wantonly inexact. I grant that if a writer was suffi¬
ciently at once incompetent and obsequious Mr. Darwin
was “ ever ready,” &c. So the Emperors of Austria wash
a few poor people’s feet on some one of the festivals of
the Church, but it would not be safe to generalise from

292

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

this yearly ceremony, and conclude that the Emperors
of Austria are in the habit of washing poor people’s
feet. I can understand Mr. Darwin’s not having taken
any public notice, for example, of “ Life and Habit,’’
for though I did not attack him in force in that book,
it was abundantly clear that an attack could not be
long delayed, and a man may be pardoned for not
doing anything to advertise the works of his oppo¬
nents ; but there is no excuse for his never having
referred to Professor Hering’s work either in “ Nature,’.’
when Professor Pay Lankester first called attention to
it (July 13, 1876), or in some one of his subsequent
books. If his attitude towards those who worked
in the same field as himself had been the generous
one which his admirers pretend, he would have
certainly come forward, not necessarily as adopting
Professor Hering’s theory, but still as helping it to
obtain a hearing.

His not having done so is of a piece with his
silence about Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck
in the early editions of the “ Origin of Species,” and
with the meagre reference to them which is alone
found in the later ones. It is of a piece also with the
silence which Mr. Darwin invariably maintained when
he saw his position irretrievably damaged, as, for
example, by Mr. Spencers objection already referred
to, and by the late Professor Eleeming Jenkin in the
North British Review (June 1867). Science, after all,
should form a kingdom which is more or less not of this
world. The ideal scientist should know neither self
nor friend nor foe — he should be able to hob-nob with

PER CONTRA .

293

those whom he most vehemently attacks, and to fly at
the scientific throat of those to whom he is personally
most attached ; he should be neither grateful for a
favourable review nor displeased at a hostile one ; his
literary and scientific life should be something as far
apart as possible from his social ; it is thus, at least,
alone that any one will be able to keep his eye single
for facts, and their legitimate inferences. We have
seen Professor Mivart lately taken to task by Mr.
Romanes for having said * that Mr. Darwin was singu¬
larly sensitive to criticism, and made it impossible
for Professor Mivart to continue friendly personal re¬
lations with him after he had ventured to maintain
his own opinion. I see no reason to question Pro¬
fessor Mivart’s accuracy, and find what he has said to
agree alike with my own personal experience of Mr.
Darwin, and with all the light that his works throw
upon his character.

The most substantial apology that can be made
for his attempt to claim the theory of descent with
modification is to be found in the practice of Lamarck,
Mr. Patrick Matthew, the author of the “ Vestiges of
Creation,” and Mr. Herbert Spencer, and, again, in the
total absence of complaint which this practice met
with. If Lamarck might write the “ Philosophic
Zoologique ” without, so far as I remember, one word
of reference to Buffon, and without being complained
of, why might not Mr. Darwin write the “ Origin
of Species ” without more than a passing allusion to
Lamarck ? Mr. Patrick Matthew, again, though writ-

* Fortnightly Review , Jan. 1886.

294

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

ing what is obviously a rdsumd of the evolutionary
theories of his time, makes no mention of Lamarck,
Erasmus Darwin, or Buffon. I have not the original
edition of the “Vestiges of Creation” before me, but
feel sure I am justified in saying that it claimed to be
a more or less Minerva-like work, that sprang full
armed from the brain of Mr. Chambers himself. This
at least is how it was received by the public ; and,
however violent the opposition it met with, I cannot
find that its author was blamed for not having made
adequate mention of Lamarck. When Mr. Spencer
wrote his first essay on evolution in the “ Leader ”
(March 20, 1852) he did indeed begin his argument,
“ Those who cavalierly reject the doctrine of Lamarck,”
&c., so that his essay purports to be written in sup¬
port of Lamarck ; but when he republished his article
in 1858, the reference to Lamarck was cut out.

I make no doubt that it was the bad example set
him by the writers named in the preceding paragraph
which betrayed Mr. Darwin into doing as they did,
but being more conscientious than they, he could not
bring himself to do it without having satisfied himself
that he had got hold of a more or less distinctive
feature, and this, of course, made matters worse. The
distinctive feature was not due to any deep-laid plan
for pitchforking mind out of the universe, or as part
of a scheme of materialistic philosophy, though it has
since been made to play an important part in the
attempt to further this ; Mr. Darwin was perfectly
innocent of any intention of getting rid of mind, and
did not, probably, care the toss of sixpence whether

PER CONTRA.

295

the universe was instinct with mind or no — what
he did care about was carrying off the palm in the
matter of descent with modification, and the distinc¬
tive feature was an adjunct with which his nervous,
sensitive, Gladstonian nature would not allow him to
dispense.

And why, it may be asked, should not the palm be
given to Mr. Darwin if he wanted it, and was at so
much pains to get it ? Why, if science is a kingdom
not of this world, make so much fuss about settling who
is entitled to what ? At best such questions are of
a sorry personal nature, that can have little bearing
upon facts, and it is these that should alone concern us.
The answer is, that if the question is so merely
personal and unimportant, Mr. Darwin may as well
yield as Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck ; Mr.
Darwin’s admirers find no difficulty in appreciating
the importance of the personal element as far as he is
concerned ; let them not wonder, then, if others, while
anxious to give him the laurels to which he is entitled,
are somewhat indignant at the attempt to crown him
with leaves that have been filched from the brows of
the great dead who went before him. Palniam qui
meruit ferat. The instinct which tells us that no man
in the scientific or literary world should claim more than
his due is an old and, I imagine, a wholesome one, and
if a scientific self-denying ordinance is demanded, we
may reply with justice, “ Quc messieurs les Charles -
Darwiniens commcncent.” Mr. Darwin will have a
crown sufficient for any ordinary brow remaining in
the achievement of having done more than any other

296

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

writer, living or dead, to popularise evolution. This
much may be ungrudgingly conceded to him, but
more than this those who have his scientific position
most at heart will be well advised if they cease hence¬
forth to demand.

( 2$ 7 )

CHAPTER XIX.

Conclusion.

And now I bring this book to a conclusion. So many
things requiring attention have happened since it was
begun that I leave it in a very different shape to the
one which it was originally intended to bear. I have
omitted much that I had meant to deal with, and have
been tempted sometimes to introduce matter the con¬
nection of which with my subject is not immediately
apparent. Such, however, as the book is, it must now
go in the form into which it has grown almost more
in spite of me than from malice prepense on my part.
I was afraid that it might thus set me at defiance,
and in an early chapter expressed a doubt whether
I should find it redound greatly to my advantage with
men of science ; in this concluding chapter I may say
that doubt has deepened into something like certainty.
I regret this, but cannot help it.

Among the points with which it was most incum¬
bent upon me to deal was that of vegetable intelli¬
gence. A reader may well say that unless I give
plants much the same sense of pleasure and pain,
memory, power of will, and intelligent perception of

298

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

the best way in which to employ their opportunities
that I give to low animals, my argument falls to the
ground. If I declare organic modification to be
mainly due to function, and hence in the closest
correlation with mental change, I must give plants, as
well as animals, a mind, and endow them with power
to reflect and reason upon all that most concerns
them. Many who will feel little difficulty about
admitting that animal modification is upon the whole
mainly due to the secular cunning of the animals
themselves will yet hesitate before they admit that
plants also can have a reason and cunning of their
own.

Unwillingness to concede this is based principally
upon the error concerning intelligence to which I have
already referred — I mean to our regarding intelligence
not so much as the power of understanding as that of
being understood by ourselves. Once admit that the
evidence in favour of a plant’s knowing its own busi¬
ness depends more on the efficiency with which that
business is conducted than either on our power of
understanding how it can be conducted, or on any
signs on the plant’s part of a capacity for understanding
things, that do not concern it, and there will be no
further difficulty about supposing that in its own sphere
a plant is just as intelligent as an animal, and keeps a
sharp look-out upon its own interests, however indif¬
ferent it may seem to be to ours. So strong has been
the set of recent opinion in this direction that with
botanists the foregoing now almost goes without say¬
ing, though few five years ago would have accepted it.

CONCLUSION.

299

To no one of the several workers in this field are we
more indebted for the change which has been brought
about in this respect than to my late valued and
lamented friend Mr. Alfred Tylor. Mr. Tylor was not
the discoverer of the protoplasmic continuity that exists
in plants, but he was among the very first to welcome
this discovery, and his experiments at Carshalton in the
years 1883 and 1884 demonstrated that, whether there
was protoplasmic continuity in plants or no, they were
at any rate endowed with some measure of reason, fore¬
thought, and power of self-adaptation to varying sur¬
roundings. It is not for me to give the details of these
experiments. I had the good fortune to see them more
than once while they were in progress, and was present
when they were made the subject of a paper read by
Mr. Sydney B. J. Skertchly before the Linnean Society,
Mr. Tylor being then too ill to read it himself. The
paper has since been edited by Mr. Skertchly, and
published.* Anything that should be said further
about it will come best from Mr. Skertchly ; it will be
enough here if I give the r6sum6 of it prepared by
Mr. Tylor himself.

In this Mr. Tylor said : — “ The principles which
underlie this paper are the individuality of plants,
the necessity for some co-ordinating system to enable
the parts to act in concert, and the probability that
this also necessitates the admission that plants have a
dim sort of intelligence.

“ It is shown that a tree, for example, is something

* On the Growth of Trees and Protoplasmic Continuity. London,
Stanford, 1886.

300

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

more than an aggregation of tissues, but is a complex
being performing acts as a whole, and not merely
responsive to the direct influence of light, &c. The
tree knows more than its branches, as the species
knows more than the individual, the community than
the unit.

“Moreover, inasmuch as my experiments show that
many plants and trees profess the power of adapting
themselves to unfamiliar circumstances, such as, for
instance, avoiding obstacles by bending aside before
touching, or by altering the leaf arrangement, it seems
probable that at least as much voluntary power must
be accorded to such plants as to certain lowly orga¬
nised animals.

“ Finally, a connecting system by means of which
combined movements take place is found in the
threads of protoplasm which unite the various cells,
and which I have now shown to exist even in the
wood of trees.

“ One of the important facts seems to be the uni¬
versality of the upward curvature of the tips of
growing branches of trees, and the power possessed
by the tree to straighten its branches afterwards, so
that new growth shall by similar means be able to
obtain the necessary light and air.

“ A house, to use a sanitary analogy, is functionally
useless without it obtains a good supply of light and
air. The architect strives so to produce the house as
to attain this end, and still leave the house comfort¬
able. But the house, though dependent upon, is not
produced by, the light and air. So a tree is functionally

CONCLUSION.

3or

useless, and cannot even exist without a proper supply
of light and air ; but, whereas it has been the custom
to ascribe the heliotropic and other motions to the
direct influence of those agents, I would rather suggest
that the movements are to some extent due to the
desire of the plant to acquire its necessaries of life.”

The more I have reflected upon Mr. Tylor’s Car-
shalton experiments, the more convinced I am of their
great value. No one, indeed, ought to have doubted
that plants were intelligent, but we all of us do much
that we ought not to do, and Mr. Tylor supplied a
demonstration which may be henceforth authoritatively
appealed to.

I will take the present opportunity of insisting
upon a suggestion which I made in “ Alps and Sanc¬
tuaries ” (pp. 197, 198), with which Mr. Tylor was
much pleased, and which, at his request, I made the
subject of a few words that I ventured to say at the
Linnean Society’s rooms after his paper had been
read. “ Admitting,” I said, “ the common protoplasmic
origin of animals and plants, and setting aside the
notion that plants preceded animals, we are still faced
by the problem why protoplasm should have developed
into the organic life of the world, along two main lines,
and only two — the animal and the vegetable. Why,
if there wTas an early schism — and this there clearly
was — should there not have been many subsequent
ones of equal importance ? We see innumerable sub¬
divisions of animals and plants, but we see no other
such great subdivision of organic life as that whereby
it ranges itself, for the most part readily, as either

302

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

animal or vegetable. Why any subdivision ? — but if
any, why not more than two great classes ? ”

The two main stems of the tree of life ought, one
would think, to have been formed on the same prin¬
ciple as the boughs which represent genera, and the
twigs which stand for species and varieties. If specific
differences arise mainly from differences of action taken
in consequence of differences of opinion, then, so
ultimately do generic ; so, therefore, again, do differ¬
ences between families ; so therefore, by analogy, should
that greatest of differences in virtue of which the
world of life is mainly animal, or vegetable. In this
last case as much as in that of specific difference, we
ought to find divergent form the embodiment and
organic expression of divergent opinion. Form is
mind made manifest in flesh through action : shades
of mental difference being expressed in shades of
physical difference, while broad fundamental differ¬
ences of opinion are expressed in broad fundamental
differences of bodily shape.

Or to put it thus : —

If form and habit be regarded as functionally in¬
terdependent, that is to say, if neither form nor habit
can vary without corresponding variation in the other,
and if habit and opinion concerning advantage are also
functionally interdependent, it follows self-evidently
that form and opinion concerning advantage (and hence
form and cunning) will be functionally interdependent
also, and that there can be no great modification of
the one without corresponding modification of the
other. Let there, then, be a point in respect of which

CONCLUSION.

303

opinion might be early and easily divided — a point in
respect of which two courses involving different lines
of action presented equally-balanced advantages — and
there would be an early subdivision of primordial life,
according as the one view or the other was taken.

It is obvious that the pros and cons for either
course must be supposed very nearly equal, otherwise
the course which presented the fewest advantages
would be attended with the probable gradual extinc¬
tion of the organised beings that adopted it, but there
being supposed two possible modes of action very
evenly balanced as regards advantage and disadvan¬
tages, then the ultimate appearance of two corre¬
sponding forms of life is a sequitur from the admission
that form varies as function, and function as opinion
concerning advantage. If there are three, four, five,
or six such opinions tenable, we ought to have three,
four, five, or six main subdivisions of life. As things
are, we have two only. Can we, then, see a matter
on which opinion was likely to be easily and early
divided into two, and only two, main divisions — no
third course being conceivable ? If so, this should
suggest itself as the probable source from which the
two main forms of organic life have been derived.

I submit that we can see such a matter in the ques¬
tion whether it pays better to sit still and make the best
of what comes in one’s way, or to go about in search
of what one can find. Of course we, as animals,
naturally hold that it is better to go about in search
of what we can find than to sit still and make the
best of what comes ; but there is still so much to be

3°4

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

said on the other side, that many classes of animals
have settled down into sessile habits, while a perhaps
even larger number are, like spiders, habitual liers in
wait rather than travellers in search of food. I would
ask my reader, therefore, to see the opinion that it
is better to go in search of prey as formulated, and
finding its organic expression, in animals, and the
other — that it is better to be ever on the look-out
to make the best of what chance brings up to them —
in plants. Some few intermediate forms still record
to us the long struggle during which the schism was
not yet complete, and tlie halting between two opinions
which it might be expected that some organisms should
exhibit.

“ Neither class,” I said in “ Alps and Sanctuaries,”
“ has been quite consistent. Who ever is, or can be ?
Every extreme, every opinion carried to its logical
end, will prove to be an absurdity. Plants throw out
roots and boughs and leaves ; this is a kind of loco¬
motion ; and, as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since pointed
out, they do sometimes approach nearly to what may
be called travelling ; a man of consistent character
will never look at a bough, a root, or a tendril with¬
out regarding it as a melancholy and unprincipled
compromise” (p. 198).

Having called attention to this view, and com¬
mended it to the consideration of my readers, I
proceed to another, which should not have been left
to be touched upon only in a final chapter, and which,
indeed, seems to require a book to itself — I refer to
the origin and nature of the feelings which those who

CONCLUSION.

305

accept volition as having had a large share in organic
modification must admit to have had a no less large
share in the formation of volition. Volition grows out
of ideas, ideas from feelings. What, then, is feeling,
and the subsequent mental images or ideas ?

The image of a stone formed in our minds is no
representation of the object which has given rise to it.
Not only, as has been often remarked, is there no re¬
semblance between the particular thought and the
particular thing, but thoughts and things generally
are too unlike to be compared. An idea of a stone
may be like an idea of another stone, or two stones
may be like one another ; but an idea of a stone is not
like a stone ; it cannot be thrown at anything, it
occupies no room in space, has no specific gravity,
and when we come to know more about stones, we
find our ideas concerning them to be but rude,
epitomised, and highly conventional renderings of the
actual facts — mere hieroglyphics, in fact, or, as it were,
counters or bank-notes, which serve to express and to
convey commodities with which they have no pretence
of analogy.

Indeed we daily find that, as the range of our per¬
ceptions becomes enlarged either by invention of new
appliances or after use of old ones, we change our
ideas though we have no reason to think that the
thing about which we are thinking has changed. In
the case of a stone, for instance, the rude, unassisted,
uneducated senses see it as above all things motionless,
whereas assisted and trained ideas concerning it repre¬
sent motion as its most essential characteristic ; but

LUCK , OR CUNNING ?

306

the stone lias not changed. So, again, the uneducated
idea represents it as above all things mindless, and is
as little able to see mind in connection with it as it
lately was to see motion ; it will be no greater change
of opinion than we have most of us undergone already
if we come presently to see it as no less full of
elementary mind than of elementary motion, but the
stone will not have changed.

The fact that we modify our opinions suggests that
our ideas are formed not so much in involuntary self-
adjusting mimetic correspondence with the objects that
we believe to give rise to them, as by what was in the
outset voluntary, conventional arrangement in whatever
way we found convenient, of sensation and perception-
symbols, which had nothing whatever to do with the
objects, and were simply caught hold of as the only
things we could grasp. It would seem as if, in the
first instance, we must have arbitrarily attached some
one of the few and vague sensations which we could
alone at first command, to certain motions of outside
things as echoed by our brain, and used them to think
and feel the things with, so as to docket them, and
recognise them with greater force, certainty, and clear¬
ness — much as we use words to help us to docket and
grasp our feelings and thoughts, or written characters to
help us to docket and grasp our words.

If this view be taken we stand in much the same
attitude towards our feelings as a dog may be supposed
to do towards our own reading and writing. The dog
may be supposed to marvel at the wonderful instinctive
faculty by which we can tell the price of the different

CONCLUSION.

3° 7

railway stocks merely by looking at a sheet of paper ;
lie supposes this power to be a part of our nature, to
have come of itself by luck and not by cunning, but a
little reflection will show that feeling is not more likely
to have “ come by nature ” than reading and writing
are. Feeling is in all probability the result of the
same kind of slow laborious development as that
which has attended our more recent arts and our bodily
organs ; its development must be supposed to have
followed the same lines as that of our other arts, and
indeed of the body itself, which is the ars artium — -
for growth of mind is throughout coincident with
growth of organic resources, and organic resources
grow with growing mind.

Feeling is the art the possession of which dif¬
ferentiates the civilised organic world from that of
brute inorganic matter, but still it is an art ; it is the
outcome of a mind that is common both to organic
and inorganic, and which the organic has alone culti¬
vated. It is not a part of mind itself ; it is no more
this than language and writing are parts of thought.
The organic world can alone feel, just as man can
alone speak ; but as speech is only the development of
powers the germs of which are possessed by the lower
animals, so feeling is only a sign of the employment
and development of powers the germs of which exist
in inorganic substances. It has all the characteristics
of an art, and though it must probably rank as the
oldest of those arts that are peculiar to the organic
world, it is one which is still in process of develop¬
ment. None of us, indeed, can feel well on more

3oS

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

than a very few subjects, and many can hardly feel
at all.

But, however this may be, our sensations and per¬
ceptions of material phenomena are attendant on the
excitation of certain motions in the anterior parts of
the brain. Whenever certain motions are excited in
this substance, certain sensations and ideas of resist¬
ance, extension, &c., are either concomitant, or ensue
within a period too brief for our cognisance. It is
these sensations and ideas that we directly cognise,
and it is to them that we have attached the idea of the
particular kind of matter we happen to be thinking of.
As this idea is not like the thing itself, so neither is
it like the motions in our brain on which it is atten¬
dant. It is no more like these than, say, a stone is
like the individual characters, written or spoken, that
form the word “ stone/’ or than these last are, in
sound, like the word “ stone ” itself, whereby the idea
of a stone is so immediately and vividly presented to
us. True, this does not involve that our idea shall
not resemble the object that gave rise to it, any more
than the fact that a looking-glass bears no resemblance
to the things reflected in it involves that the reflection
shall not resemble the things reflected ; the shifting
nature, however, of our ideas and conceptions is enough
to show that they must be symbolical, and conditioned
by changes going on within ourselves as much as by
those outside us ; and if, going behind the ideas which
suffice for daily use, we extend our inquiries in the
direction of the reality underlying our conception, we
find reason to think that the brain- motions which

CONCLUSION.

309

attend our conception correspond with exciting motions
in the object that occasions it, and that these, rather
than an)7 thing resembling our conception itself, should
be regarded as the reality.

This leads to a third matter, on which I can only
touch with extreme brevity.

Different modes of motion have long been known
as the causes of our different colour perceptions, or at
any rate as associated therewith, and of late years,
more especially since the promulgation of Newlands’ #
law, it has been perceived that what we call the
kinds or properties of matter are not less conditioned
by motion than colour is. The substance or essence
of unconditioned matter, as apart from the relations
between its various states (which we believe to be its
various conditions of motion) must remain for ever
unknown to us, for it is only the relations between
the conditions of the underlying substance that we
cognise at all, and where there are no conditions,
there is nothing for us to seize, compare, and, hence,
cognise ; unconditioned matter must, therefore, be as
inconceivable by us as unmattered condition ; t but
though we can know nothing about matter as apart
from its conditions or states, opinion has been for some
time tending towards the belief that what we call the
different states, or kinds, of matter are only our ways

* Sometimes called Mendelejeff s (see “ Monthly Journal of Science,”
April 1884).

f I am aware that attempts have been made to say that we can con¬
ceive a condition of matter, although there is no matter in connection
with it — as, for example, that we can have motion without anything
moving (see “Nature,” March 5, March 12, and April 9, 1S85) — but I
think it little likely that this opinion will meet general approbation.

3io

LUCK, OR CUNNING?

of mentally characterising and docketing our estimates
of the different kinds of motion going on in this other¬
wise uncognisable substratum.

Our conception, then, concerning the nature of any
matter depends solely upon its kind and degree of
unrest, that is to say, on the characteristics of the
vibrations that are going on within it. The exterior
object vibrating in a certain way imparts some of its
vibrations to our brain — but if the state of the thing
itself depends upon its vibrations, it must be considered
as to all intents and purposes the vibrations themselves
— plus, of course, the underlying substance that is
vibrating. If, for example, a pat of butter is a portion
of the unknowable underlying substance in such-and-
such a state of molecular disturbance, and it is only by
alteration of the disturbance that the substance can be
altered — the disturbance of the substance is practically
equivalent to the substance : a pat of butter is such-
and-such a disturbance of the unknowable underlying
substance, and such-and-such a disturbance of the
underlying substance is a pat of butter. In com¬
municating its vibrations, therefore, to our brain a
substance does actually communicate what is, as far as
we are concerned, a portion of itself. Our perception
of a thing and its attendant feeling are symbols attach¬
ing to an introduction within our brain of a feeble
state of the thing itself. Our recollection of it is
occasioned by a feeble continuance of this feeble state
in our brains, becoming less feeble through the acces¬
sion of fresh but similar vibrations from without. The
molecular vibrations which make the thing an idea of

CONCLUSION.

3”

which is conveyed to our minds, put within our brain
a little feeble emanation from the thing itself — if we
come within their reach. This being once put there,
will remain as it were dust, till dusted out, or till it
decay, or till it receive accession of new vibrations.

The vibrations from a pat of butter do, then, actu¬
ally put butter into a man’s head. This is one of the
commonest of expressions, and would hardly be so com¬
mon if it were -not felt to have some foundation in
fact. At first the man does not know what feeling or
complex of feelings to employ so as to docket the vibra¬
tions, any more than he knows what word to employ
so as to docket the feelings, or with what written
characters to docket his word ; but he gets over this,
and thenceforward the vibrations of the exterior object
(that is to say, the thing) never set up their characteristic
disturbances, or, in other words, never come into his
head, without the associated feeling presenting itself
as readily as word and characters present themselves,
on the presence of the feeling. The more butter a
man sees and handles, the more he gets butter on the
brain — till, though he can never get anything like
enough to be strictly called butter, it only requires the
slightest molecular disturbance with characteristics like
those of butter to bring up a vivid and highly sympa¬
thetic idea of butter in the man’s mind.

If this view is adopted, our memory of a thing is
our retention within the brain of a small leaven of the
actual thing itself, or of what qua us is the thing that
is remembered, and the ease with which habitual
actions come to be performed is due to the power of

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

312

the vibrations having been increased and modified by
continual accession from without till they modify the
molecular disturbances of the nervous system, and
therefore its material substance, which we have already
settled to be only our way of docketing molecular
disturbances. The same vibrations, therefore, form
the substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal
dose of it within the brain, modify the substance re¬
membering, and, in the course of time, create and
further modify the mechanism of both the sensory and
motor nerves. Thought and thing are one.

I commend these two last speculations to the
reader’s charitable consideration, as feeling that I
am here travelling beyond the ground on which I
can safely venture ; nevertheless, as it may be some
time before I have another opportunity of coming
before the public, I have thought it, on the whole,
better not to omit them, but to give them thus pro¬
visionally. I believe they are both substantially true,
but am by no means sure that I have expressed them
either clearly or accurately ; I cannot, however, further
delay the issue of my book.

Returning to the point raised in my title, Is luck,
I would ask, or cunning, the more fitting matter to
be insisted upon in connection with organic modifica¬
tion ? Do animals and plants grow into conformity
with their surroundings because they and their fathers
and mothers take pains, or because their uncles and
aunts go away ? For the survival of the fittest is
only the non-survival or going away of the unfittest —
in whose direct line the race is not continued, and

CONCLUSION .

3J3

who are therefore only uncles and aunts of the
survivors. I can quite understand its being a good
thing for any race that its uncles and aunts should go
away, but I do not believe the accumulation of lucky
accidents could result in an eye, no matter how many
uncles and aunts may have gone away during how
many generations.

I would ask the reader to bear in mind the views
concerning life and death expressed in an early chapter.
They seem to me not, indeed, to take away any very
considerable part of the sting from death ; this should
not be attempted or desired, for with the sting of
death the sweets of life are inseparably bound up so
that neither can be weakened without damaging the
other. Weaken the fear of death, and the love of life
would be weakened. Strengthen it, and we should
cling to life even more tenaciously than we do. But
though death must always remain as a shock and change
of habits from which we must naturally shrink — still it
is not the utter end of our being, which, until lately,
it must have seemed to those who have been unable to
accept the grosser view of the resurrection with which
we were familiarised in childhood. We too now know
that though worms destroy this body, yet in our flesh
shall we so far see God as to be still in Him and of
Him — biding our time for a resurrection in a new and
more glorious body ; and, moreover, that we shall be to
the full as conscious of this as we are at present of
much that concerns us as closely as anything can
concern us.

The thread of life cannot be shorn between successive

3T4

LUCK, OR CUNNING ?

generations, except upon grounds which will in equity
involve its being shorn between consecutive seconds,
and fractions of seconds. On the other hand, it can¬
not be left unshorn between consecutive seconds with¬
out necessitating that it should be left unshorn also
beyond the grave, as well as in successive generations.
Death is as salient a feature in what we call our life
as birth was, but it is no more than this. As a salient
feature, it is a convenient epoch for the drawing of a
defining line, by the help of which we may better
grasp the conception of life, and think it more effectu¬
ally, but it is a facon de jparler only ; it is, as I said in
“ Life and Habit,” * “ the most inexorable of all con¬
ventions,” but our idea of it has no correspondence
with eternal underlying realities.

Finally, we must have evolution ; consent is too
spontaneous, instinctive, and universal among those
most able to form an opinion, to admit of further
doubt about this. We must also have mip.d and
design. The attempt to eliminate intelligence from
among the main agencies of the universe, has broken
down too signally to be again ventured upon — not
until the recent rout has been forgotten. Neverthe¬
less the old, far-foreseeing Dcus ex machind design as
from a point outside the universe, which indeed it
directs, but of which it is no part, is negatived by the
facts of organism. What, then, remains, but the view
that I have again in this book endeavoured to uphold —
I mean, the supposition that the mind or cunning of
which we see such abundant evidence all round us, is,

Tage 53.

CONCLUSION.

3i5

like the kingdom of heaven, within us, and within all
things at all times everywhere ? There is design, or
cunning, but it is a cunning not despotically fashion¬
ing us from without as a potter fashions his clay, but
inhering democratically within the body which is its
highest outcome, as life inheres within an animal or
plant.

All animals and plants are corporations, or forms
of democracy, and may be studied by the light of
these, as democracies, not infrequently, by that of
animals and plants. The solution of the difficult prob¬
lem of reflex action, for example, is thus facilitated,
by supposing it to be departmental in character ; that
is to say, by supposing it to be action of which the
department that attends to it is alone cognisant, and
which is not referred to the central government so
long as things go normally. As long, therefore, as this
is the case, the central government is unconscious of
what is going on, but its being thus unconscious is no
argument that the department is unconscious also.

I know that contradiction in terms lurks within
much that I have said, but the texture of the world is
a warp and woof of contradiction in terms ; of con¬
tinuity in discontinuity, and discontinuity in continuity ;
of unity in diversity, and of diversity in unity. As
in the development of a fugue, where, when the sub¬
ject and counter subject have been enounced, there must
thenceforth be nothing new, and yet all must be new, so
throughout organic life — which is as a fugue developed
to great length from a very simple subject — everything
is linked on to and grows out of that which comes

LUCK , OR CUNNING?

316

next to it in order — errors and omissions excepted.
It crosses and thwarts what comes next to it with
difference that involves resemblance, and resemblance
that involves difference, and there is no juxtaposition
of things that differ too widely by omission of necessary
links, or too sudden departure from recognised methods
of procedure.

To conclude ; bodily form may be almost regarded
as idea and memory in a solidified state — as an
accumulation of things each one of them so tenuous as
to be practically without material substance. It is as
a million pounds formed by accumulated millionths of
farthings ; more compendiously it arises normally from,
and through, action. Action arises normally from,
and through, opinion. Opinion, from, and through,
hypothesis. “ Hypothesis,” as the derivation of the
word itself shows, is singularly near akin to “ under¬
lying, and only in part knowable, substratum ; ” and
what is this but “ God ” translated from the language
of Moses into that of Mr. Herbert Spencer ? The
conception of God is like nature — it returns to us in
another shape, no matter how often we may expel
it. Vulgarised as it has been by Michael Angelo,
Kaffaelle, and others who shall be nameless, it has been
like every other corruptio ojptimi — pcssimum : used
as a hieroglyph by the help of which we may better
acknowledge the height and depth of our own ignorance,
and at the same time express our sense that there is
an unseen world with which we in some mysterious
way come into contact, though the writs of our thoughts
do not run within it — used in this way, the idea and

CONCLUSION.

the word have been found enduringly convenient.
The theory that luck is the main means of organic
modification is the most absolute denial of God which
it is possible for the human mind to conceive — while
the view that God is in all His creatures, He in them
and they in Him, is only expressed in other words by
declaring that the main means of organic modification
is, not luck, but cunning.

INDEX

♦

Abuses, the poor, of the time, 174
Academicism, 189
Accident, mixed with design, 84,
104

- proenatal, most important, 127

Accidental variations would not
accumulate, 93, 116, 181, 214, 256

- C. Darwin cutting out, 98

Account, we want to, for things, 155
Accumulation, of accidental varia¬
tions impossible, 93, 116, 181,
214, 256

Act of Parliament like trying to
construe, Ac. , 102
Action, a middle term between
mind and matter, 79
Adjuncts, thought, and feeling de¬
clared, 156, Ac.

Allen, G. , on “The Origin of
Species,” 186

- on misconception concerning

C. Darwin’s claiming descent,
192, 236, 260

- on C. Darwin’s youth, 200, Ac.

- on pre-C. -Darwinian evolu¬
tion, 246, 247

- on C. Darwin, 246, 249, 260,

261, 262

- on C. Darwin making all sure

behind him, 249, 251
- “practically unthinkable,” 253,

254

- article in “ Mind, 253

- stepping-stones, 257

Allman, Prof., his address to the
British Association, 133, Ac.

- uneasy about protoplasm, 148

Almost impossible, aud providen¬
tial, 172

American, on “ Life and Habit, ’’ 14

Amoeba, its illogical nature, 129
Animals, and plants, the embodi¬
ments of two principles, 115, 301

- democracies, 315, Ac.

Argyll, Duke of, timid, 106

- on II. Spencer’s Nineteenth

Cent urn articles, 163, Ac.

- “reign of terror, 164

- letter to Nature, August 12,

1886

- on natural selection, 163, 165

Aristides, and 0. Darwin, 262
Association, liberal, 121

- words and painting aliko rest

on, 121

- does not stick to its bond, 122

Atom, universe the only, 173
Austria, emperor washing feet, 291
Automatism, animal, Huxley,
Hobbes, audliomanes on, 156, Ac.

Babel, logic the true, 30
Balance of power, among our ideas,
upset, 24

Barrenness, of ideas, 32, 33
Bathybius died at .Norwich, 147,
148

Beethoven, and snuffers, 291
Bernard, Claude, “ Jlien nenait,”
Ac., 29

- “La vie, e’est la mort ,” 75

Body and mind, interaction of, 80

- and living and non-living, 171

- the more they reduced mecha¬
nism to, Ac., 150

the ars artiuvi, 307
1 tones, do not mend themso Ives, 135
Books, live many generations, 2
Boom, the biggest biological, 71

3 20

INDEX.

Boots, our, spare paws, 135
Brain, butter on the, 310, 311
Breach, the same which lets, &c., 139
Bricks and bricklayer, 135
British Museum stuff new speci¬
mens with old ones, 134
Bruno, Giordano, on the life of
clothes, 130

Button, and Erasmus Darwin,
better men that Lamarck, 12

- did not insist so much on

function, 113

Burglar’s jemmy, the, and natural
selection, 95, 96
Butter on the brain, 310, 31 1

Cambre, 289

Capital, cunning the most potent
developer of, 125

Categorical, C. Darwin’s, “my,”
223

Chance, and aroma of design, 174,
175

Change, all miraculous, 28, 76

- pro tanto, death, or birth, 75

- Substratum of lifo and death,

75, 76

- solve any, k c., 75

- either growth, or dissolution,

or half-and-half, 76

- all pleasant, recreative, kc. , 76

- and consciousness, 78

Church, the, would discourage con¬
tinued personality between gene¬
rations, 23

Classification, depends on humour,
173

- C. Darwin, and Lamarck on

genealogical, 225, 226
Clifford, Prof., his article “Body
and Mind,” 159
Clothes, in wear, livo, 130, 131
Coal, shot out of sack, 175
Common sense, must know when
to close a discussion, 131

- not yet formulated in matters

of science, 132

- when our philosophers left the

ground of, kc ., 167

- the Mammon of, 168

Confidence trick, scientific, T98
Consciousness, no contradiction,
no, 43

- and change, 78

- and feeling, the attempt to
eliminate, 156

Continuity, a, in discontinuity, 30,

315

Contradiction in terms, who can
avoid ? 43

- no, no consciousness, 43

— as per l,f(’xtina /< n(r," 73
involved in the union of body

and soul, 79

foundation of sound reason¬
ing, 132

- Cod the ineffable, 153

we must rehabilitate, 172

- - omnipresent, 315

Convenient, the common view of
personality, 24

Converts, protoplasm, things, 142
Creations, we must have, but, &c.,

3°

Creighton, Dr., on unconscious
memory, 68, &c.

Cross, no, no crown, 43
Cunning, Erasmus Darwin the
apostle of, T05

- enough obvious, kc., to6

Lamarck apostle of, 20 r
- and form functionally related,

30a

Cuvier, great in small things, 271

Darwin, 0., and Paley, the first
denied design, 5, 6
- his weak place, re rudimen¬
tary organs, 7

- li is mantle, 54, 6t, 65

if he lmd told in what the
earlier evolutionists said, 58

— heir to discredited truth, kc.,
60, 286

- stages of opinion on the con¬
nection between memory and
heredity, 61

- “ Nirture by making habit

hereditary, ’’ kc., 62

- wanted to differ from his

grandfather and Lanmrok, 62

- and old Moore’s almanac, 63

- on design in connection with

Hermann Midler’s book, 63

- preface to Weismann’s book,

- title-page of “Origin of

Species,” 85, 86

- essential difference between

him and his forerunners, 89
- “through natural selection,”

INDEX.

3*1

Darwin, C., and Hunting of the
Snark, 97

- on the eye, 97

- cutting out “accidental,” 98

- did not like his accidental

variations, 99

- and “the unerring skill” of

natural selection, 99
- “power represented by natu¬
ral selection,” xoo

- his several editions, ioc

- found his natural selection a

millstone, 10 1

• - admits element of cunning, 105

- his real name, 106

- never met 11. Spencer’s fatal

objeotion, 120

- waved Lamarck and K. Darwin

aside, 145

- said sometimes one thing and

sometimes its opposite, 177, 178

- intended his change of front

to escape us, 181, 260
- supposed leaning towai'ds func¬
tion in later life, 182

- if he had changed, should

have said so, 183

- important, unimportant, 186

- and “experienced naturalists,”

187

- “imperfect answer,” “satis¬
factory,” 187

- - there must be some other, 188

- why ho did not say what ho

meant, 189

- told Lamarck to go away, 190

- and “Vestiges,” 190, 250

- Cast about for a distinctive

feature, 190

- did not acknowledge earlier

evolutionists till 6000 copies of
his work had been sold, 190, 239,
248

- his attitude towards descent,

explains his natural selection, 191

- his claim to theory of descent,

192, &o., 204, ko.

- figure of straw re the mistle¬
toe, 198

- naive letter to Iheckel, 199

- G. Allen on his youth, 204, kc.

- treats descent as identical

with natural selection, 209, kc.,
214, &c., 228, 229, 232

- his categorical “my," 223

- on genealogical order of nature,

225, 226

Darwin, 0., alters “on”to “opposed
to” and “according to,” 229,
230

- an interminable number, 230

- ubiquity of his claim, 235

- his categorical “my,” 236

- sneaked his my’s out, 237,^0.

- his meanness, and greatness

of his services, 242

- what I10 should liavo said, 242,

243 .

— his distinctive feature, 243, kc.

- ostrich-like and pitiable, 245

- - forthcoming life of, 245

- told Lamarck to go away, after

grossly misrepresenting him, 247
— - neutralised his historical
sketch, by his book, 248
- and “seems,” re Lamarck, 248,

249

- made all sure behind him, 249,

251

- and “Vestiges of Creation,”

250

- “presumos” re the “Ves¬
tiges,” 251

- suave, but singularly fraudu¬
lent, 252

~ — - misconception about his doc¬
trine and Lamarck’s, 259, 260
— his conspicuous sinking of self,
ostentatious unostentatiousness,
and mastery over simplicity, 261

- like Aristides, 262

- greatest of living men, 262

- and Herod, 262

— - cogent while following La¬
marck, 272

- fortuitousness of variations

kept as dark as possible, 272
so fogged us, that we did not
catch his doctrine, 275
- - “in trying to filch, while pre¬
tending to amend,” ko., 278
- - his own fault, if misunder¬
stood, 278

- wished 11s to misunderstand,

<*79

- should not bo judged by letter

of his books, 281

- no writer done so much good

as, 2S2

- his persistency, 282, kc.

- like Pope .Julius IT., 283

- did not show early promise,

283

- on earthquakes, 284

322

INDEX.

Darwin, C., action of worms, 285

- strongest in savoir faire, 285,

286

• - cannot be denied rare great¬

ness, 286

- gave his esoteric doctrine to

the world, 286

- watching his worms, 288

- and “ sag,” 289

- - effect of work, instantaneous,

290

- his style bad, 291

- when badly hit said nothing,

291

- and emperors of Austria, 291

- should have noticed Hering,

292

- his best justification, 293

- and Professor Mivart, 293

• - did not care whether universe

instinct with mind or no, 294

- great populariser of evolution,

296

Darwin, Erasmus, and Buff on better
men than Lamarck, 12

- and moral uniformity, 82

- new generation, elongation, 60

- and thrift, 72, 73

- admits chance, 108, 111

Darwin, Francis, re Professor Her-
ing’s lecture, 38
Death and life, 75

- and decay an untuning, 76

- complex, 76

- swallowed up in life, 77

■ - fear of, necessary, 170

- residue of life in, 170

- only a new departure, 170

- if we let life without the body,

&c, 171

- not so complete, 313

- a faqon de parler only, 314

Decimals, true for seven places, 25
Democracies, animals and plants,
315

Departmental, reflex action, 315
Descent, treated as identical with
natural selection, 209, &c. , 214,
&c., 228, 229, 232

- triumphed as rapidly as other

theories, 272

Design, aggregation of small de¬
signs, truest design, 11, 12

- C. Darwin, re Hermann

Muller’s book, 63, 64

- of telescope, and chance, 84

- a rope of many strands, 104

Design, 'mixed with chance, 174, 175
Detail, none escaped if small, 182
Details of two principles embodied
in species of animals and plants,
i*5

Diapason, the, closing full, &c., 76
Diderot, on life of corpse, 170
Digests us, our food, 143
Discords, should be prepared, 27, 32
Distinctive feature, Mr. Darwin’s,
never compared with older view
by neo-Darwinians, 94
Disuse, if main means of reducing,
178

Dog’s nose, as it were the twitch-
ings of a, 101

- and share-list, 306, 307

Donkey-race, and theorists, 25 7
Duncan, Stewart, his “ Conscious
Matter,” 160

Dying, and degrees of life, 131, 166

Earthquakes, C. Darwin on, 284
Eating, and love, 142
Ego, the, non ego qua organ in use,
106

Enemy, if the last, death, &c., 77
Enures, cunning to the benefit of
successors, 124

Ephemeron, apologue of the, 266
Equation, Prof. Hering reduced life
from an, of 100 unknown quan¬
tities, &c., 3, 55

Equilibrium, small disturbance of
may modify much, 273
Estate, in mind, body, or, 128
Evolution in 1809, meant much
what it does now, 201
Examiner, my articles in the, 146
Experience of the race, accumu¬
lated experiences, &c., 22

- H. Spencer on, 33, 34

• - the elements of, 23

- while realising, our minds ex¬
cluded race, 33

- it was not in the nexus of our

ideas, to extend to offspring, 41
Extreme, to mark that, &c., 116
Eye, the, and telescope, 83
- C. Darwin on the, 97

Face, if we look it in, 254
Faith, the just shall live by, 30
Faith, or wants of faith, that have
been most, kc,, 81

INDEX.

3 23

Faith, founded on reason, 132
Faiths, many, both living and sav¬
ing, 3°

Fancy, which sometimes sways,
&c., 81

Father, when the, eats, the un¬
begotten son is nourished, 26
Favour, a cloak for luck, 269, 270
Feed, to fuse and diffuse ideas, 31
Feeling and consciousness, the at¬
tempt to eliminate, 156, &c.
Feel, none perfectly, and some not
at all, 308

Feeling an acquired art, 304, &c.

- originally symbolic, 305, &c.

- to reality, as word to feeling,

306

- not part of mind, 307

Food, we must chew our fine, &c., 31

- very thoughtful, 31

- and money, 129

- our, digests us, 143

Form, mind, made manifest in flesh
through action, 302
- and cunning functionally re¬
lated, 302

Fraudulent, suave, but singularly,
252

Fugue, life like a, 315
Fusion all, an outrage upon our
understandings, 31
- and feeding, 31

Gas, potent as a, 31
Genealogical order, C. Darwin and
Lamarck on, 225, 226
Generation, ordinary, and natural
selection, 221, 222
Geoffroy, Isidore, an unconscious
teleologist, 9, 10

- on Lamai-ck, 276

German and Irish colonies, 123
Gloves, why we box with, 141
Gnome, mused forth as a, 63
Go away, uncles and aunts, 312
God, but see and live, 30

- we are a part of, 124

- an invaluable conception, 153

- the ineffable contradiction in

terms, 153

- Corruptio optimi, &c., 316

- substratum, hypothesis, 316

Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister,” 188
Going, a sense of deadlocks, 43
Grove, Sir William, his conserva¬
tion of energy, 151, &c.

Growth, a coming together of ele¬
ments, &c., 76

- , a kind of success, 126

Gustibus, de, non est, &c., 81

Habit, changed, involves changed
organism, 74

Haeckel, C. Darwin to, 199

- his “ History of Creation ” and

C. Darwin’s my’s, 239, &c.
Harmonics, from every proposi¬
tion, 3

- “ when the note of life is

struck,” &c., 79

- of life in death, 169

Hartmann, Von. declares neo-Dar¬
winism a mechanical conception,
157

Helm, unguided by the, 145
Hering, Professor E., reduced life
from an equation, &c., 3

- should run his own theory,

18, 19

- adopted by Dr. Creighton, 68

Herrnaphroditically, nature hates,
&c., 44

Hobbes, and automatism, 158
Horace, “ non omnis moriar,” 77
Hour, hand of clock, and organic
modification, 265
Husband and wife one flesh, 41
Huxley, Professor, foisted C. Dar¬
win upon us, 94

- prophet of protoplasm, 133

— — on animal automatism, 157

- Romanes, G. J., on, 158

Hypothesis, substratum, and God,
316

Ideas, like plants and animals, 1

- the balance of power among

our, was upset, 24

- can be changed in almost any

direction, 27

- and words, 27

- , cross fertilisation of, essen¬
tial, 44

- unlike objects, 305

- solidified, and organism, 316

Imperfect answer, satisfactory,
187

Important, unimportant, 186
Incoherency, barrenness, 32, 33
Individual, the, formerly seen as
one and race as many, 23

INDEX.

3-4

Individual, rrofeasor Moseley and
“almost impossible,” 172
Inherited memory, Spencer, 'H., on,
45

Instinct, Spencer, II., on, 42

Romanes, G. J., on the origin
and development of, 51

- Romanes, G. J.,soon dropped

natural selection in connection
with, 51, 52

- Romanes, G. J., defines, and

proposed amendment, 59
Intelligence, the power of being
understood, 79, 298

power of not being understood,
989

Irish and German colonies, 123

,1 km MY, burglar’s, and natural selec¬
tion, 95, 96

Julius II., Rope, boxed Michael
Angelo’s ears, 283

Kingsley, Canon, and inherited
memory, 35

Lamakok, an unconscious teleolo-
gist, 9, 10

- did not deal handsomely by

Buffon, 12

- introduces moral uniformity,

Ac., 82

- admits element of chance, 113

- on genealogical order, 225, 226

- Sir 0. Lyell on, 238, 239

- bore brunt of laughing, 247

- “ Philosophic Zoologique,” a

better work than the “Origin of
Specios,” 247

made “ Vestiges ” possible, 248

- direct transforming agents, 268

- opposed by Huxley, Ac., 270

- his poverty, 270

- unequally matched against

Cuvier, 271

- bis opinions now accepted, 271

- C. Martins, and I. Geolfroyon,

276

- Lazarus of biology, 277

Lankester, E. R., and Professor
Hering’s lecture, 35, 36
— — his attack in the Athenceum
on myself, 37

- “greatest of living men,” 262

Lankester, E. R., on Professor
Semper’s book, 264, Ac.

- his note in “Nature,” 266, Ac.

- on inherited mutilation, 275

Lawyer, “like trying to act on the
advice of a,” Ac., 102
Liberal, precipitate and inaccurate,
121

Life and death, not absolutely
antagonistic, 75, 76,

- a mode of change, 75

- and growth an attuning, 76

- ranges through every degree

of complexity, 76

- no greater mystery than death,

— ■ swallowed up in death, 77

- of clothes in wear, 130, 131

— — and death we can distinguish
easily enough, 168

- not fundamentally opposed

to one another, 169

- - and death, as reflections in

two mirrors, 169

- they were cornering it, 162

“Life and Habit,” note written in,
by an American, 14

and the “Principles of Psy¬
chology,” their differentiating
feature, 27

- considered too startling a para¬
dox to be taken seriously, 40
Lines, hard and fast, wo want, 155
Living, all is, that is in connection
with mind, 130

- which parts are most, 133

- if the body is not, what can

be called living? 143
Livingnoss, on degrees of, 133, 166,
167

and versatility, 167
Logic, true tower of Babel, 30

- and the amoeba, 129

- fobbed by tho rusty curb of, 174

Lord, a being ever with the, 77

- we do it to the, 78

Love, and eating, 142
Luck, goes without saying, 94

- C. Darwin tho apostle of, 105

- enough obvious, Ac., 106

- will not hoard, 117

- tho unforeseeable, 125

Lyell, Sir 0. , on Lamarck, 238, 239

Macbeth, Lady, blood on her hand,

156

INDEX.

325

Man, many amcebas, 130
Manner, this was not Mr, Dar¬
win’s, 64

Martins, C., on Lamarck, 276
Materialism, and spiritualism, 154
Matter, and modes of motion, 309,
&c.

Matthew, P., on natural selection,
9°, 91

Meanness, I know not whether
most to wonder at C. Darwin’s,
or the greatness of his services,
242

Mechanism, the more they reduced
the body to, 150

- to the level of unerring, 156

Mendelejeff’s law, 309

Mental growth, correlation of, 289

Mind and body, interaction of, 80

- - the more a thing knows its

own, &c., 167

- manifested through form, 302

- elementary in stone, 306

- feeling no part of, 307

Minimis , de, &c., 28
Miracle, none can say exactly where
it must cease, 32

- a, in respect of only two or

three per cent., 74

- death as great a, as life, 77

Miraculous, change, essentially, 28

- the lawful home of the, 28

- the, writ large, &c., kills, 29

- all fusion and diffusion, 30

- all change is, 76

Mirrors, life and death as reflec¬
tions in two, 169, 175
Mistletoe, C. Darwin’s figure of
straw re the, 198

Mivart, Professor St. G., his “Gene¬
sis of Species,” 5, 9

- reviewed my books in the

American Catholic Quarterly, 37

- “ what is a living being V 133

- “ what is a thing?” 172

- and C. Darwin, 293

Modification, begins at home, 127
Modus vivendi, all living forms
establish a, &c., 74
Money and food, 129

- gives new lease of life, 167

- sensible people alone hold, 290

Monistic conception of the universe,
we all desire, 151
Moral, a, uniformity, 82
Moseley, Professor, on “individual,"
172

Motion, most essential character¬
istic of a stone, 305

- modes of, and matter, 309

Moulders, mould themselves, 127
Mutilation, rule, re inherited, 275
“ My,” C. Darwin’s categorical,
223, 236

My’s smitten with homing instinct,
238

Naive, this is very, 200
Nails, that want cutting, 131, 171
Natural selection, the early evolu¬
tionists taught this, 90-92

- Patrick Matthew on, 90-92

- a misleading expression, 92

- two theories of, 67, 93, 180,

214, 227, 228, 241, 245, 254, 255

- the preservation of lucky

races, 85

- the original title of the “Origin

of'Species," 87

- the biggest biological boom,

- as applied to machines, 94,

- representing a power, 99-101

- intently watching, &c., xoo

- Duke of Argyll on, 163, 165

- C. Darwin’s, explained by his

attitude towards descent, 191

- as in last paragraph of the

“Origin of Species,’’ 180
- treated as identical with de¬
scent, 209, &c., 214, &c., 228, 229,
232

- not a theory, but a fact, 218

- and ordinary generation, 221,

222

- Allen, G.’s, record re, 253

■ - no distinctive feature of C.

Darwin, 255

“Neanderthal Skull,” review, 266
Newlands’ law, 309
Nexus, it was not in the, 41
Non-readers, many of my, 32
Norwich, Pathybius, died at, 147
Nutrition and reproduction, 142

Opinion, divided, and form, 303
Organic wealth, and thrift, 73

- wealth not figurative, 128

Organism and surroundings run
into one another, 106
- in account with universe, 122

INDEX.

Organism, more important than
environment, 124

- aud property, 127, &c.

Organs and tools, 143, &c.

“Origin of Species,” its title mis¬
leading, 86

- originally called “Natural

Selection,” 87

- should be referred to as “Ori¬
gin of Species,” kc., 88
■ - almost any view can be de¬

fended from the, 179

- concluding paragraph, 179,

180, 234

- first edition consisted of 4000

copies, 204

- first two editions 6000 copies,

239, 248, 252

Orpheus-like, as, to charm, &c., 31
Ostentatious unostentatiousness,
261

Paley, F. A., on C. Darwin’s book
on worms, 285

Paradox, the non-livingness of the
living, and the livingness of the
non-living, 149
Paws, our hoots, spare, 135
Pellet, impotent as a, 31
Penelope, like, undoing, &c., 117
Penny, if a, be dropped, &c., 161
Pensions, we have given, 8

- out of the public, 157

Personality, the common view com¬
monly most convenient, 24

- no more lost in generations

than in seconds, 25

- not lost in death, 3x3, 314

Philosophy made for man, 30

- - another world, with another

language, 167

- the God of, 168

Plants must have intelligence, 298

- - and animals, embodiments of

two principles, 115, 301, &c.
Plasticity, of organism, 74
Porter, beating doormats, 173
Power, a, represented by natural
selection, 99-101
Property, and organism, 127, &c.
Proselytises, protoplasm in stomach,
142

Protoplasm, great is, 133, kc.

- coextensive with life, 133

- has the ear of life, 134

- turns dead to account, 134

Protoplasm goes masked behind its
habits, 135

- will fare as the body, 138

- cannot communicate directly

with machine, 141

- the life of the world, 146

- God Almighty, 147

- collapsed in 1879, 147

- and vital principle, 148

- and the mechanical theory of

the universe, 161

Protoplasmic parts of body more
living than non-protoplasmic, 146
Psalmist, the, aiming at modern
conceptions, 152

Pure, we want to get things, 155
Purse and stomach, 128,

Race, formerly seen as many, and
individual as one, 23
- while realising, our minds ex¬
cluded experience, 33

- the, not to the swift, 73

Reason, founded on faith, 132
Reflex action, departmental, 315
Religion and science, antagonism
of, and reconciling, 258
Reproduction and nutrition, 142
Res , non sibi, kc., 105
Rhythms, reinforce pre-existing, 76
Romanes, G. J., his review of “ Un¬
conscious Memory,” 37

- letter to Athenaeum, 39

- on “ Erewhon ” and “ Life and

Habit,” 40

- has adopted Heringian view,

49, 50, 54

- on the origin of development

of instincts, 51

- dropped natural selection in

connection with instinct, 51, 52

• - and Mr. Darwin’s mantle, 54,

6i, 65

- calls consciousness an adjunct,

- his definition of instinct, 59

- heredity working up a faculty,

- theory of physiological selec¬
tion, 65, &c.

- does not see there are two

natural selections, 67

- on Huxley’s automatism, 158

Rosmini, on property, 127, &c.
Rudimentary organs, Paley and
C. Darwin on, 7

INDEX.

327

“Sag,” C. Darwin, &c., 289
“ Satisfactory,” “ imperfect an¬
swer,” 187

Saturday Review, reviewof “Evolu¬
tion Old and New ” in, 38
Science, too young to know, &c. , 132

- and religion, antagonism of,

and reconciling, 258
“Seem” on greasing sentences
with, 249

Selection, from what ? 89
Semper, Prof,, E. R. Lankesteron,
264, &c.

Simplicity, C. Darwin’s happy, 261
Snark, and C. Darwin, 97
Sneaked, C. Darwin, his my’s out,

237

Snuffers, Beethoven and, 291
Solid form of idea, organism, 316
Soul, animating alien body, 171
Spalding, D. , on animal automatism ,
159, &c.

Species, embodiment of details, &c.,
US

Spencer, H., letter to Athenceum,
20, 21, 46-48

- experience of the race, 22, 33,

■ - did not make personality en¬

dure through successive genera¬
tions, 25

- “Principles of Psychology”

and “Life and Habit,” how dif¬
ferentiated, 27

- not understood to be taking

line taken in “ Life and Habit,”
36-46

- on instinct, 42

- approaches Hering, 42

- on unconscious memory, 42, 43

- his contradictions blinked, 44

- fond of qualifying phrases, 45

- should have spoken sooner,

- only once speaks of inherited

memory, 45

- factors of organic evolution,

107, &c.

- thinks as Erasmus Darwin,

107, &c.

- - fatal objection to neo-Dar¬
winism, 1 17. &c.

- Duke of Argyll on, 163-165

- on C. Darwin’s supposed

change of opiuion, 182

- could not have converted us

as 0. Darwin did, 289

Spencer, H., cut out Lamarck’s
name, 294

Spirits, doctrine of, returns, &c.,
!7 1

Spiritualism and materialism, 154
Sports, E. Darwin and Lamarck
on, 73

St. Gothard tunnel, 136
St. James’s Gazette, review in the,
40, 41

St. Paul, “I die daily,” 77
Steam-engine, the, and natural
selection, 94, 95
Stomach and purse, 128

- amoeba jobs its, 129

- protoplasm’s fullest suasion

in, 141

Stone, motion, characterises a, 305

- and elementary mind, 306

Substratum, hypothesis, God, 316
Succeed, in not succeeding, 263
Success, only test on large scale, 125
Survival of the luckiest, 89

- of the fittest, two theories of,

93,180 (see ‘ 1 Natural Selection ”)
Swallowed up in life, death, 77, 172

Teleology, unconscious, 9, 10,
Telescope, accumulated cunning,

Tempering, power, or temper, 28
Thing, what is a ? (a thing is what
we choose to think it is), 172

- and thought, identity of, 312

Think, so easy to, if it is not thought
about, 30

- we have got to, 156

Thought and food, 31

- and steps on ice, 155

- and feeling, adjuncts, 156

- and thing, identity of, 312

Thrift, and early evolutionists, 72,
73

Throe, of thought and thing, 79
“ Through natural selection,” 89
Times, the, on G. J. Romanes’
physiological selection, 65, &c.
Tools, in use, living, 130

- and non-protoplasmic parts

of body, 139

- of various degrees, 139

- and bodily organs run on all

fours, but must be classed apart,
143, &c.

True, neither view more, 24
Trumps, are not held, &c., 126

328

INDEX.

Tylor, Alfred, Carshnlton experi¬
ments, &c., 299 (see Preface)

- Linnean Society lecture, 300

Tyndall, Prof., on automatism, 161

Uncles and aunts, go away, 312
Unconditioned matter, 80
Undesign, within design, 104
Unglovedly, we handle our food
most, 141

Unimportant, important, 186
Universe, the, in account with
organism, 122

- the only atom, 173

Unjust judges, we become, 171
Unmattered condition, 80, 309
Unostentatious ostentatiousness,
261

Use, if disuse main means of reduc¬
ing, should, &c., 178

Variation, a mode of cooking
accounts, 122

Variations, caused by variation, 98

Vegetable, animal, why ? 301, &c.
“Vestiges of Creation,” C. Darwin’s
misrepresentation of, 190, 250,
252

- made C. Darwin possible,

248

Vianna, De Lima, M., on organic
aud inorganic, 170
Vibrations, the same form the
thing, the idea, and the nervous
mechanism, 312
Vicious circle, arguing in, 129
Vulgarity, and culture, 132

Wallace, A. R. review of “Life
and Habit,” 37

- and Lamarck, 102

Wealth, organic, 73, 128
Weismann, C. Darwin’s preface, 64
“Wilhelm Meister,” Goethe’s, 188
Wilson, A., on protoplasm, 133
Woodpecker, and mistletoe, and
luck, 197

Words, like fairy cloak, &c., 27
Writs, of our thoughts, 81, 316

THE END.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

Alphabetical Catalogue of the Books
Published by A. C. Fifield, 13, Clif¬
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( Arranged under authors and titles ) J , LeIei?one:

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Animals’ Rights. See Salt.

Arbor Vitae. See Blount.

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Anarchism and Socialism. See

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Anarchists, The. See Mackay.

Argemone. See Holden.

Articles of Faith. See Housman.

Autobiography of a Super-Tramp.
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Authoress of the Odyssey. See
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Alps and Sanctuaries. See Butler.

Barlow, George. The Higher
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