236 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



himself to say that Mr. Darwin " laid no sort of 

 claim to originality or proprietorship " in the theory 

 of descent with modification. ~ 



Nevertheless I have only found one place where 

 Mr. Darwin pinned himself down beyond possibility 

 of retreat, however ignominious, by using the words 

 " my theory of descent with modification." * He 

 often, as I have said, speaks of " my theory," and 

 then shortly afterwards of " descent with modification," 

 under such circumstances that no one who had not 

 been brought up in the school of Mr. Gladstone could 

 doubt that the two expressions referred to the same 

 thing. He seems to have felt that he must be a poor 

 wriggler if he could not wriggle out of this ; give him 

 any loophole, however small, and Mr. Darwin could 

 trust himself to get out through it ; but he did not 

 like saying what left no loophole at all, and "my 

 theory of descent with modification " closed all exits so 

 firmly that it is surprising he should ever have allowed 

 himself to use these words. As I have said, Mr. 

 Darwin only used this direct categorical form of claim 

 in one place ; and even here, after it had stood through 

 three editions, two of which had been largely altered, 

 he could stand it no longer, and altered the " my " 

 into "the" in 1866, with the fourth edition of the 

 " Origin of Species." 



This was the only one of the original forty-five 

 my's that was cut out before the appearance of the 

 fifth edition in 1869, and its excision throws curious 

 light upon the working of Mr. Darwin's mind. The 



* Origin of Species, p. 381, ed. I. 



