ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC. 6$ 



to perfectibility" — or towards being able to he per- 

 fected. 



I could find no able discussion upon the whole 

 subject in Professor Weismann's book. There was a 

 little something here and there, but not mucL 



It may be expected that I should say something 

 here about Mr. Eomanes' latest contribution to bio- 

 logy — I mean his theory of physiological selection, 

 of which the two first instalments have appeared in 

 Nature just as these pages are leaving my hands, and 

 many months since the foregoing, and most of the 

 following chapters were written. I admit to feeling a 

 certain sense of thankfulness that they did not appear 

 earlier; as it is, my book is too far advanced to be 

 capable of further embryonic change, and this must be 

 my excuse for saying less about Mr. Eomanes' theory 

 than I might perhaps otherwise do. I cordially, 

 however, agree with the Times, which says that " Mr. 

 George Eomanes appears to be the biological investi- 

 gator on whom the mantle of Mr. Darwin has most 

 conspicuously descended" (August i6, 1886). Mr. 

 Eomanes is just the person whom the late Mr. Darwin 

 would select to carry on his work, and Mr. Darwin 

 was just the kind of person towards whom Mr. Eomanes 

 would find himself instinctively attracted. 



The Times continues — "The position which Mr. 

 Eomanes takes up is the result of his perception 

 shared by many evolutionists, that the theory of 

 natural selection is not really a theory of the origin of , 



E 



