332 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



This leaves nothing to be desired. It is Buffon, 

 Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck, well expressed. Those were 

 the days before " Natural Selection " had been dis- 

 charged into the waters of the evolution controversy, 

 like the secretion of a cuttle fish. Changed circum- 

 stances immediately induce changed habits, and hence 

 a changed use of some organs, and disuse of others : 

 as a consequence of this, organs and instincts become 

 changed, "and these changes continue in successive 

 generations, until ultimately the new conditions become 

 the natural ones." This is the whole theory of " deve- 

 lopment," " evolution," or " descent with modification." 

 Volumes may be written to adduce the details which 

 warrant us in accepting it, and to explain the causes 

 which have brought it about, but I fail to see how 

 anything essential can be added to the theory itself, 

 which is here so well supported by Mr. Spencer, and 

 which is exactly as Lamarck left it. All that remains 

 is to have a clear conception of the oneness of person- 

 ality between parents and offspring, of the eternity, and 

 latency, of memory, and of the unconsciousness with 

 which habitual actions are repeated, which last point, 

 indeed, Mr. Spencer has himself touched upon. 



Mr. Spencer continues "That by any series of 

 changes a zoophyte should ever become a mammal, 

 seems to those who are not familiar with zoology, and 

 who have not seen how clear becomes the relationship 

 between the simplest and the most complex forms, 

 when all intermediate forms are examined, a very 

 grotesque notion .... they never realize the fact that 

 by small increments of modification, any amount of 



