MR. GRANT ALLEN'S " CHARLES DARWIN." 253 



and on finding that he had misrepresented him in a 

 passage which he did not venture to retain, he should 

 not have expunged it quietly, but should have called 

 attention to his mistake in the body of his book, and 

 given every prominence in his power to the correction. 



Let us now examine Mr. Allen's record in the matter 

 of natural selection.* For years he was one of the 

 foremost apostles of Neo-Darwinism, and any who said 

 a good word for Lamarck were told that this was the 

 "kind of mystical nonsense" from which Mr. Allen 

 " had hoped Mr. Darwin had for ever saved us." * 

 Then in October 1883 came an article in "Mind," 

 from which it appeared as though Mr. Allen had abjured 

 Mr. Darwin and all his works, 



"There are only two conceivable ways," he then 

 wrote, " in which any increment of brain power can 

 ever have arisen in any individual. The one is the 

 Darwinian way, by spontaneous variation, that is to 

 say, by variation due to minute physical circumstances 

 affecting the individual in the germ. The other is 

 the Spencerian way, by functional increment, that is 

 to say, by the effect of increased use and constant 

 exposure to varying circumstances during conscious 

 life." 



Mr. Allen calls this the Spencerian view, and so it 

 is in so far as that Mr. Spencer has adopted it. Most 

 people will call it Lamarckian. This, however, is a 

 detail. Mr. Allen continues : — 



" I venture to think that the first way, if we look it 

 clearly in the face, will be seen to be practically un- 



* Examiner, May 17, 1879, review of "Evolution Old and New." 



