1 8 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



was that the facts which Mr. Darwin supplied would 

 not bear the construction he tried to put upon them ; 

 I tried, therefore, to make them bear another which 

 seemed at once more sound and more commodious; 

 rightly or wrongly I set up as a builder, not as a 

 burner of bricks, and the complaint so often brought 

 against me of not having made experiments is about 

 as reasonable as complaint against an architect on the 

 score of his not having quarried with his own hands 

 a single one of the stones which he has used in build- 

 ing. Let my opponents show that the facts which 

 they and I use in common are unsound, or that I have 

 misapplied them, and I will gladly learn my mistake, 

 but this has hardly, to my knowledge, been attempted. 

 To me it seems that the chief difference between 

 myself and some of my opponents lies in this, that I 

 take my facts from them with acknowledgment, and 

 they take their theories from me — without. 



One word more and I have done. I should like 

 to say that I do not return to the connection between 

 memory and heredity under the impression that I 

 shall do myself much good by doing so. My own 

 share in the matter was very small. The theory that 

 heredity is only a mode of memory is not mine, but 

 Professor Hering's. He wrote in 1870, and I not 

 till 1877. I should be only too glad if he would 

 take his theory and follow it up himself; assuredly 

 he could do so much better than I can ; but with the 

 exception of his one not lengthy address published 

 some fifteen or sixteen years ago he has said nothing 

 upon the subject, so far at least as I have been able 



