PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE. 127 



of the organism does more towards determining its 

 future than the conditions of its immmediate environ- 

 ment do, is only another way of saying that the 

 accidents which have happened to an organism in the 

 persons of its ancestors throughout all time are more 

 irresistible by it for good or ill than any of the more 

 ordinary chances and changes of its own immediate 

 life. I do not deny this ; but these ancestral accidents 

 were either turned to account, or neglected where they 

 might have been taken advantage of; they thus passed 

 either into skill, or want of skill ; so that whichever 

 way the fact is stated the result is the same ; and if 

 simplicity of statement be regarded, there is no more 

 convenient way of putting the matter than to say 

 that though luck is mighty, cunning is mightier still. 

 Organism commonly shows its cunning by practising 

 what Horace preached, and treating itself as more plastic 

 than its surroundings ; those indeed who have had the 

 greatest reputation as moulders of circumstances have 

 ever been the first to admit that they have gained 

 their ends more by shaping their actions and them- 

 selves to suit events, than by trying to shape events 

 to suit themselves and their actions. Modification, like 

 charity, begins at home. 



But however this may be, there can be no doubt 

 that cunning is in the long run mightier than luck as 

 regards the acquisition of property, and what applies 

 to property applies to organism also. Property, as I 

 have lately seen was said by Eosmini, is a kind of 

 extension of the personality into the outside world. 

 He might have said as truly that it is a kind of pene- 



