1 86 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



variations which qud us are spontaneous. Nevertheless, 

 though these spontaneous variations are still so trifling 

 in effect that they only aid spontaneous variations in an 

 unimportant manner, in his earlier edition^ Mr. Darwin 

 thought them still less important than he does now. 



This comes of tinkering. We do not know whether 

 we are on our heads or our heels. We catch ourselves 

 repeating " important," " unimportant," " unimportant," 

 " important," like the King when addressing the jury 

 in " Alice in Wonderland ; " and yet this is the book of 

 which Mr. Grant Allen * says that it is " one of the 

 greatest, the most learned, the most lucid, the most 

 logical, the most crushing, the most conclusive, that 

 the world had ever seen. Step by step, and principle 

 by principle, it proved every point in its progress 

 triumphantly before it went on to the next. So vast an 

 array of facts so thoroughly in hand had never before 

 been mustered and marshalled in favour of any biological 

 theory." The book and the eulogy are well mated. 



I see that in the paragraph following on the one 

 just quoted, Mr. Allen says, that " to the world at 

 large Darwinism and evolution became at once 

 synonymous terms. Certainly it was no fault of Mr. 

 Darwin's if they did not, but I will add more on this 

 head presently ; for the moment, returning to Mr. 

 Darwin, it is hardly credible, but it is nevertheless 

 true, that Mr. Darwin begins the paragraph next 

 following on the one on which I have just reflected so 

 severely, with the words, " It can hardly be supposed 

 that a false theory would explain in so satisfactory a 

 * Charles Darwin, p. 113. 



