PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 269 



stand them than Professor Ray Lankester has taken 

 to understand Lamarck, and by 'this time know them 

 sufficiently. We thankfully accept by far the greater 

 number, and rely on them as our sheet-anchors to 

 save us from drifting on to the quicksands of Neo- 

 Darwinian natural selection ; few of them, indeed, 

 are Mr. Darwin's, except in so far as he has endorsed 

 them and given them publicity, but I do not know 

 that this detracts from their value. We have paid 

 great attention to Mr. Darwin's facts, and if we do not 

 understand all his arguments — for it is not always 

 given to mortal man to understand these — yet we 

 think we know what he was driving at. We believe 

 we understand this to the full as well as Mr. Darwin 

 intended us to do, and perhaps better. Where the 

 arguments tend to show that all animals and plants 

 are descended from a common source we find them 

 much the same as Bufibn's, or as those of Erasmus 

 Darwin or Lamarck, and have nothing to say 

 against them ; where, on the other hand, they aim at 

 proving that the main means of modification has been 

 the fact that if an animal has been " favoured " it will 

 be " preserved " — then we think that the animal's own 

 exertions will, in the long run, have had more to do 

 with its preservation than any real or fancied " favour." 

 Professor Ray Lankester continues : — 



" The doctrine of evolution has become an accepted 

 truth " (Professor Ray Lankester writes as though the 

 making of truth and falsehood lay in the hollow of 

 Mr. Darwin's hand. Surely " has become accepted " 

 should be enough ; Mr. Darwin did not make the 



