STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 73 



has been sometimes made by "striking oil," and ere 

 now been transmitted to descendants in spite of the 

 haphazard way in which it was originally acquired. 

 No speculation, no commerce; "nothing venture, 

 nothing have," is as true for the development of 

 organic wealth as for that of any other kind, and 

 neither Erasmus Darwin nor Lamarck hesitated about 

 admitting that highly picturesque and romantic inci- 

 dents of developmental venture do from time to time 

 occur in the race-histories even of the dullest and 

 most dead-level organisms under the name of " sports ;" 

 but they would hold that even these occur most often 

 and most happily to those that have persevered in 

 well-doing for some generations. Unto the organism 

 that hath is given, and from the organism that hath 

 not is taken away ; so that even " sports " prove to 

 be only a little off thrift, which still remains the 

 sheet anchor of the early evolutionists. They believe, 

 in fact, that more organic wealth has been made by 

 saving than in any other way. The race is not in the 

 long run to the phenomenally swift nor the battle to 

 the phenomenally strong, but to the good average all- 

 round organism that is alike shy of Eadical crotchets 

 and old world obstructiveness. "Festina," but "fesfina 

 lente " — perhaps as involving so completely the contra- 

 diction in terms which must underlie all modification 

 — is the motto they would assign to organism, and 

 " Chi va piano va lontano," they hold to be a maxim 

 as old, if not as the hills (and they have a hankering 

 even after these), at any rate as the amoeba. 



To repeat in other words. All enduring forms 



