MR. GRANT ALLEN'S "CHARLES DARWIN." 255 



Darwin's. Mr. Darwin's "distinctive notion" is natural 

 selection from among fortuitous variations. 



Writing again (p. 89) of Mr. Spencer's essay in tlie 

 " Leader," * Mr. Allen says : — 



" It contaius, in a very pHilosopliical and abstract 

 form, the theory of ' descent with modification ' without 

 the distiactive Darwinian adjunct of ' natural selection ' 

 or survival of the fittest. Tet it was just that lever 

 dexterously applied, and carefully weighted with the 

 whole weight of his endlessly accumulated inductive 

 instances, that finally enabled our modern Archimedes 

 to move the world." 



Again : — 



" To account for adaptation, for the almost perfect 

 fitness of every plant and every animal to its position 

 in life, for the existence (in other words) of definitely 

 correlated parts and organs, we must call in the aid 

 of survival of the fittest. Without that potent selective 

 agent, our conception of the becoming of life is a mere 

 chaos ; order and organisation are utterly inexplicable 

 save by the brilliant illuminating ray of the Darwinian 

 principle" (p. 93). 



And yet two years previously this same principle, 

 after having been thinkable for many years, had be- 

 come " unthinkable." 



Two years previously, writing of the Charles-Dar- 

 winian scheme of evolution, Mr. Allen had implied it as 

 his opinion " that all brains are what they are in virtue 

 of antecedent function." " The one creed," he wrote — 

 referring to Mr. Darwin's — " makes the man depend 

 * Given in part in " Evolution Old and New." 



