226 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



Again : — 



" We may feel almost sure, on the theory of descent, 

 that these characters have been inherited from a 

 common ancestor" (p. 426). 



Again : — 



" On my view of characters being of real importance 

 for classification only in so far as they reveal descent, 

 we can clearly understand," &c. (p. 427). 



" On my view " became " on the view " in 1872. 



Again : — 



" The more aberrant any form is, the greater must 

 be the number of connecting forms which, on my 

 theory, have been exterminated and utterly lost " 

 (p. 429). 



The words "on my theory" were excised in 1869. 



Again : — 



Finally, we have seen that natural selection . . . 

 explains that great and universal feature in the 

 affinities of all organic beings, namely, their subordi- 

 nation in group under group. We use the element of 

 descent in classing the individuals of both sexes, &c. ; 

 . . . we use descent in classing acknowledged varieties ; 

 . . . and I believe this element of descent is the 

 hidden bond of connection which naturalists have sought 

 under the term of the natural system " (p. 433). 



Lamarck was of much the same opinion, as I 

 showed in " Evolution Old and New." He wrote : — 

 " An arrangement should be considered systematic, or 

 arbitrary, when it does not conform to the genealogical 

 order taken by nature in the development of the 

 things arranged, and when, by consequence, it is not 



