312 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



the vibrations having been increased and modified by 

 continual accession from without till they modify the 

 molecular disturbances of the nervous system, and 

 therefore its material substance, which we have already 

 settled to be only our way of docketing molecular 

 disturbances. The same vibrations, therefore, form 

 the substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal 

 dose of it within the brain, modify the substance re- 

 membering, and, in the course of time, create and 

 further modify the mechanism of both the sensory and 

 motor nerves. Thought and thing are one. 



I commend these two last speculations to the 

 reader's charitable consideration, as feeling that I 

 am here travelling beyond the ground on which I 

 can safely venture ; nevertheless, as it may be some 

 time before I have another opportunity of coming 

 before the public, I have thought it, on the whole, 

 better not to omit them, but to give them thus pro- 

 visionally. I believe they are both substantially true, 

 but am by no means sure that I have expressed them 

 either clearly or accurately ; I cannot, however, farther 

 delay the issue of my book. 



Returning to the point raised in my title, Is luck, 

 I would ask, or cunning, the more fitting matter to 

 be insisted upon in connection with organic modifica- 

 tion ? Do animals and plants grow into conformity 

 with their surroundings because they and their fathers 

 and mothers take pains, or because their uncles and 

 aunts go away ? For the survival of the fittest is 

 only the non-survival or going away of the unfittest — 

 in whose direct line the race is not continued, and 



