73 LUCK, OR CUNNING ? 



seeing its value as prime means of modification called 

 in question. Within the last few months, indeed, 

 Mr. Grant Allen* and Professor Eay Lankestert in 

 England, and Dr. Ernst KrauseJ in Germany, have 

 spoken and written warmly in support of the theory 

 of natural selection, and in opposition to the view 

 taken by myself; if they are not to he left in 

 possession of the field the sooner they are met the 

 better. 



Stripped of detail the point at issue is this; — 

 whether luck or cunning is the fitter to be insisted 

 on as the main means of organic development. Eras- 

 mus Darwin and Lamarck answered this question in 

 favour of cimning. They settled it in favour of in- 

 telligent perception of the situation — within, of course, 

 ever narrower and narrower limits as organism retreats 

 farther backwards from ourselves — and persistent effort 

 to turn it to account. They made this the soul of all 

 development whether of mind or body. 



And they made it, like all other souls, liable to 

 aberration both for better and worse. They held that 

 some organisms show more ready wit and savoirfaire 

 than others; that some give more proofs of genius 

 and have more frequent happy thoughts than others, 

 and that some have even gone ihrough waters of 

 misery which they have used as wells. The sheet 

 anchor both of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck is in 

 good sense and thrift ; stOl they are aware that money 



* Charles Darwin. Longmans, 1885. 



■y Lectures at the London Institution, Feb. 1886, 



J Charles Darwin. Leipsic, 1885. 



