58 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



Even here I am made to personify more than I like; 

 I do not wish to say that the unconscious does this or 

 that, but that when we have done this or that suffi- 

 ciently often we do it unconsciously. 



If the foregoing be granted, and it be admitted 

 that the unconsciousness and seeming automatism with 

 which any action may be performed is no bar to its 

 having a foundation in memory, reason, and at one 

 time consciously recognized effort and this I believe 

 to be the chief addition which I have ventured to make 

 to the theory of Buffon and Dr. Erasmus Darwin then 

 the wideness of the difference between the Darwinism of 

 eighty years ago and the Darwinism of to-day becomes 

 immediately apparent, and it also becomes apparent, 

 how important and interesting is the issue which is 

 raised between them. 



According to the older Darwinism the lungs are just 

 as purposive as the corkscrew. They, no less than the 

 corkscrew, are a piece of mechanism designed and 

 gradually improved upon and perfected by an intelli- 

 gent creature for the gratification of its own needs. 

 True there are many important differences between 

 mechanism which is part of the body, and mechanism 

 which is no such part, but the differences are such as 

 do not affect the fact that in each case the result, 

 whether, for example, lungs or corkscrew, is due to 

 desire, invention, and design. 



And now I will ask one more question, which may 

 seem, perhaps, to have but little importance, but which 

 I find personally interesting. I have been told by a 

 reviewer, of whom upon the whole I have little reason 



