94 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



plain words that we should readily apprehend it ? 

 Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck were understood by 

 all who wished to understand them ; why is it that 

 the misunderstanding of Mr. Darwin's " distinctive 

 feature " should have been so long and obstinate ? 

 Why is it that, no matter how much writers like Mr. 

 Grant Allen and Professor Eay Lankester may say 

 about " Mr. Darwin's master-key," nor how many 

 more like hyperboles they brandish, they never put 

 a succinct r^sumd of Mr. Darwin's theory side by 

 side with a similar r4sum6 of his grandfather's and 

 Lamarck's ? Neither Mr. Darwin himself, nor any of 

 those to whose advocacy his reputation is mainly due, 

 have done this. Professor Huxley is the man of all 

 others who foisted Mr. Darwin most upon us, but in 

 his famous lecture on the coming of age of the 

 " Origin of Species " he did not explain to his hearers 

 wherein the Neo-Daiwinian theory of evolution dif- 

 fered from the old ; and why not ? Surely, because 

 no sooner is this made clear than we perceive that 

 the idea underlying the old evolutionists is more in 

 accord with instinctive feelings that we have cherished 

 too long to be able now to disregard them than the 

 central idea which underlies the " Origin of Species." 



What should we think of one who maintained that 

 the steam-engine and telescope were not developed 

 mainly through design and effort (letting the indis- 

 putably existing element of luck go without saying), 

 but to the fact that if any telescope or steam-engine 

 " happened to be made ever such a little more con- 

 veniently for man's purposes than another," &c., &c. ? 



