HARD WICKE ' 5 5 CIENCE- G SSIP. 



29 



The last passages I shall quote are pathetic, in 

 view of the persistent attempts to connect Darwin 



J'-igs. Siand g.— Dissection of the Leg of a Chick at the fifth 

 and eighth day of incubation (after Johnson). Fe, femur; 

 T, tibia ; F, fibula ; A, astragalus (tibiale) ; Ta, tarsalia. 



The numerals refer to the digits. (From "Introduction to 

 Lectures on Pathology," by Bland Sutton.) 



with the narrow, unprogressive school which strives 

 to identify itself with his name. He says:* "It 



* "Origin of Species," p. 421 (1872). 



appears that I formerly underrated the frequency and 

 value of these later forms of variation " (viz. adaptive 

 structures which have arisen by the direct action of 

 external conditions). "But as my conclusions have 

 lately been much misrepresented, and it has been 

 stated that I attribute the modification of species 

 exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted 

 to remark that .... I placed in a most conspicuous 

 position the following words : • I am convinced that 

 natural selection has been the main, but not the 

 exclusive means of modification.' This has been of 

 no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresenta- 

 tion, but the history of science shows that fortunately 

 this power does not long endure." But his views 

 were gradually changing as to the importance of the 

 action of the environment in evolution ; and in one 

 of his later letters he says : " In my opinion the 

 greatest error which I have committed has been not 

 allowing sufficient weight to the direct action of the 

 environment, independently of natural selection." * 



We have an equally fine instance of the willingness 

 to accept new ideas, however much they might 

 apparently be in opposition to his own views, in the 

 attitude of Mr. Herbert Spencer towards this very 

 theory of natural selection. As early as 1864, in his 

 "Principles of Biology," f with that prophetic 

 instinct which characterises genius, he had laid down 

 those principles of evolution now often spoken of as 

 Neo-Lamarckian. For Lamarck, animated by the 

 same prophetic genius, had foreseen the prepotent 

 power of the action of environment, though his data 

 were so imperfect, so apparently empirical, that his 

 theory was laughed to scorn. Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 had pointed out the influence of the environment on 

 the very simplest unicellular organisms, had traced it 

 up to more and more complex organisms, had 

 shown its influence upon every part of the body and 

 its struggle with atavism, or the principle of heredity 

 so strongly possessed by all animal and vegetable 

 cells. Of the many hundreds of brilliant discoveries 

 in chemistry, pathology, biology, and palaeontology, 

 which from every side now confirni his theories, he 

 could not then avail himself; yet his conclusions are 

 confirmed in almost every instance by what these 

 sciences have revealed to us. Yet in his "Factors 

 of Organic Evolution," published twenty-two years 

 later, he is ready to resign his victor's wreath to 

 Darwin, he acknowledges him as a teacher, and 

 bears witness to the priceless services rendered to the 

 cause of the evolutionary theory by the publication of 

 the " Origin of Species." He sees both sides of the 

 medal, but he does not at that date appear to have 

 grasped the fact that each side belongs to the same 

 medal, and that natural selection is only one mani- 

 festation of that great Law of the Action of the 

 Environment on all organic beings, of which he was 



* "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," vol. ii., p. 338. 

 t "Principles of Biology," pp. 7, 12, T, 74i 7Sj 80, 83, 226, 

 235> 294. 296, 311. 322. &c. 



