MR. HERBERT SPENCER. 39 



nothing about Mr. Spencer, and spoke of the idea as 

 one which had been quite new to him. 



The above names comprise (excluding Mr. Spencer 

 himself) perhaps those of the best-known writers on 

 evolution that can be mentioned as now before the 

 public; it is curious that Mr. Spencer should be the 

 only one of them to see any substantial resemblance 

 between the " Principles of Psychology " and Professor 

 Bering's address and " Life and Habit." 



I ought, perhaps, to say that Mr. Eomanes, writing 

 to the Athenceum (March 8, 1884), took a different 

 view of the value of the theory of inherited memory 

 to the one he took in 1 8 8 1 . 



In 1 8 8 1 he said it was " simply absurd " to suppose 

 it could "possibly be fraught with any benefit to 

 science" or " reveal any truth of profound significance ;" 

 in 1884 he said of the same theory, that "it formed 

 the backbone of all the previous literature upon 

 instinct " by Darwin, Spencer, Lewes, Fiske, and 

 Spalding, " not to mention their numerous followers, 

 and is by all of them elaborately stated as clearly as 

 any theory can be stated in words." 



Few except Mr. Eomanes will say this. I grant it 

 ought to " have formed the backbone," &c., and ought 

 "to have been elaborately stated," &c., but when I 

 wrote " Life and Habit " neither Mr. Eomanes nor any 

 one else understood it to have been even glanced at 

 by more than a very few, and as for having been 

 " elaborately stated," it had been stated by Professor 

 Hering as elaborately as it could be stated within the 

 limits of an address of only twenty-two pageSj but 



