268 LUCK, OR CUNNING ? 



who take his statement without examination. Lamarck 

 does not say that modification is effected by means of 

 " directly transforming agents ; " nothing can be more 

 alien to the spirit of his teaching. With him the 

 action of the external conditions of existence (and 

 these are the only transforming agents intended by 

 Professor Eay Lankester) is not direct, but indirect. 

 Change in surroundings changes the organism's outlook, 

 and thus changes its desires ; desires changing, there is 

 corresponding change in the actions performed ; actions 

 changing, a corresponding change is by-and-by induced 

 in the organs that perform them ; this, if long con- 

 tinued, will be transmitted; becoming augmented by ac- 

 cumulation in many successive generations, and further 

 modifications perhaps arising through further changes 

 in surroundings, the change will amount ultimately to 

 specific and generic difference. Lamarck knows no 

 drug, nor operation, that will medicine one organism 

 into another, and expects the results of adaptive effort 

 to be so gradual as to be only perceptible when ac- 

 cumulated in the course of many generations. When, 

 therefore, Professor Eay Lankester speaks of Lamarck 

 as having " advocated directly transforming agents," 

 he either does not know what he is talking about, or 

 he is trifling with his readers. Professor Eay Lan- 

 kester continues : — 



" They do not seem to be aware of this, for they 

 make no attempt to examine Mr. Darwin's accumulated 

 facts and arguments." Professor Eay Lankester need 

 not shake Mr. Darwin's " accumulated facts and argu- 

 inents " at us. We have taken more pains to under- 



