22 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



tions ; " nor yet, thougli in the course of the six or 

 seven years that had elapsed since " Life and Habit " 

 ■was published I had brought out more than one book 

 to support my earlier one, had he said anything during 

 those years to lead me to suppose that I was trespass- 

 ing upon ground already taken by himself. Nor, again, 

 had he said anything which enabled me to appeal to 

 his authority — which I should have been only too 

 glad to do ; at last, however, he wrote, as I have said, 

 to the Athenaeum a letter which, indeed, made no 

 express claim, and nowhere mentioned myself, but 

 " the meanings and implications " from which were 

 this time as clear as could be desired, and amount to 

 an order to Professor Hering and myself to stand aside. 



The question is, whether the passages quoted by 

 Mr. Spencer, or any others that can be found in his 

 works, show that he regarded heredity in all its mani- 

 festations as a mode of memory. I submit that this 

 conception is not derivable from Mr. Spencer's writings, 

 and that even the passages in which he approaches it 

 most closely are unintelligible till read by the light of 

 • Professor Hering's address and of " Life and Habit." 



True, Mr. Spencer made abundant use of such expres- 

 sions as " the experience of the race," " accumulated 

 experiences," and others like them, but he did not 

 explain — and it was here the difficulty lay — how a 

 race could have any experience at all. ' We know 

 what we mean when we say that an individual has 

 had experience ; we mean that he is the same person 

 now (in the common use of the words), on the occasion 

 of some present action, as the one who performed a 



