viii PREFACE. 



I ever saw him, the manner in which he received it 

 settled the question. If he had lived I should no 

 doubt have kept more closely to my original plan, and 

 should probably have been furnished by him with much 

 that would have enriched the book Jand made it more 

 worthy of his acceptance ; but this was not to be. 



In the course of writing I became more and more 

 convinced that no progress could be made towards a 

 sounder view of the theory of descent until people 

 came to understand what the late Mr. Charles Darwin's 

 theory of natural selection amounted to, and how it 

 was that it ever came to be propounded. Until the 

 mindless theory of Charles-Darwinian natural selection 

 was finally discredited, and a mindful theory of evolu- 

 tion was substituted in its place, neither Mr. Tylor's 

 experiments nor my own theories could stand much 

 chance of being attended to. I therefore devoted my- 

 self mainly, as I had done in " Evolution, Old and 

 New," and in " Unconscious Memory,'' to considering 

 whether the view taken by the late Mr. Darwin, or 

 the one put forward by his three most illustrious pre- 

 decessors, should most command our assent. 



The deflection from my original purpose was in- 

 creased by the appearance, about a year ago, of Mr. 

 Grant Allen's " Charles Darwin," which I imagine to 

 have had a very large circulation. So important, 

 indeed, did I think it not to leave Mr. Allen's state- 

 ments unchallenged, that in November last I recast 

 my book completely, cutting out much that I had 

 written, and practically starting anew. How far Mr. 



