158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Here I must break off, after dealing with a page and a half 

 of the Duke of Argyll's article. A state of health which has 

 prevented me from publishing anything since The Factors of 

 Organic Evolution, now nearly two years ago, prevents me 

 from carrying the matter further. Could I have pursued the 

 argument it would, I believe, have been practicable to show that 

 various other positions taken up by the Duke of Argyll do not 

 admit of effectual defence. But whether or not this is. probable, 

 the reader must be left to judge for himself. On one further 

 point only will I say a word ; and this chiefly because, if I pass 

 it by, a mistaken impression of a serious kind may be diffused. 

 The Duke of Argyll represents me as " giving up " the " famous 

 phrase " " survival of the fittest," and wishing " to abandon it." 

 He does this because I have pointed out that its words have 

 connotations against which we must be on our guard, if we 

 would avoid certain distortions of thought. With equal pro- 

 priety he might say that an astronomer abandons the statement 

 that the planets move in elliptic orbits, because he warns his 

 readers that in the heavens there exist no such things as orbits, 

 but that the planets sweep on through a pathless void, in direc- 

 tions perpetually changed by gravitation. 



I regret that I should have had thus to dissent so entirely 

 from various of the statements made and conclusions drawn by 

 the Duke of Argyll, because, as I have already implied, I think 

 he has done good service by raising afresh the question he has 

 dealt with. Though the advantages which he hopes may result 

 from the discussion are widely unlike the advantages which I 

 hope may result from it, yet we agree in the belief that advan- 

 tages may be looked for. How profound and wide-spreading are 

 the consequences which may follow from the answer given to 

 the question — " Are acquired characters hereditary ? " I have 

 pointed out in the preface to The Factors of Organic Evolution 

 in its republished form ; and perhaps I may be excused if I here 

 reproduce the essential passages for the purpose of giving to 

 them a wider diffusion : 



" Though mental phenomena of many kinds, and especially 

 of the simpler kinds, are explicable only as resulting from the 

 natural selection of favorable variations ; yet there are, I believe, 

 still more numerous mental phenomena, including all those of 

 any considerable complexity, which cannot be explained other- 

 wise than as results of the inheritance of functionally-produced 

 modifications. . . . 



" Of course there are involved the conceptions we form of the 

 genesis and nature of our higher emotions ; and, by implication, 

 the conceptions we form of our moral intuitions. . . . 

 " That our sociological beliefs must also be profoundly affected 



