Dedicatory Epistle v 



and demands ; but in my little book, " The Destiny 

 of Man," published in 1884, I gave a popular ex- 

 position of it which has made it widely known in 

 all English-speaking countries and on the continent 

 of Europe, as well as among your worthy Japanese 

 neighbours, Tom, who have done me the honour to 

 translate some of my books into their vernacular. 

 The theory has become still further popularized 

 through having furnished the starting-point for 

 some of the most characteristic speculations of the 

 late Henry Drummond. In these and other ways 

 my infancy theory has so far entered into the cur- 

 rent thoughts of the present age that people have 

 (naturally enough) begun to forget with whom it 

 originated. For example, in the recent book, 

 " Through Nature to God," while criticising a re- 

 mark of Huxley's, I found it desirable to make a 

 restatement of the infancy theory; whereupon a 

 friendly reviewer, referring to that particular part 

 of the book, observes that " of course " it makes no 

 pretensions to originality, but is simply my lucid 

 summary of speculations with which every reader 

 of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Romanes, and Drum- 

 mond is familiar ! In point of fact, not the faintest 

 suggestion of this infancy theory can be found in 

 all the writings of Darwin, Huxley, and Romanes. 

 In Spencer's "Sociology," vol. i. p. 630, it is briefly 



