22 Unconscious Memory 



that Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about 

 it in Nature some time ago, but he could not remember 

 exactly when, and had given extracts from a lecture by 

 Professor Ewald Hering, who had originated the theory. 

 I said I should not look at it, as I had completed that part 

 of my work, and was on the point of going to press. I 

 could not recast my work if, as was most likely, I should 

 find something, when I saw what Professor Hering had 

 said, which would make me wish to rewrite my own book ; 

 it was too late in the day and I did not feel equal to making 

 any radical alteration ; and so the matter ended with very 

 little said upon either side. I wrote, however, afterwards _ 

 to my friend asking him to tell me the number of Nature 

 which contained the lecture if he could find it, but he was 

 unable to do so, and I was well enough content. 



A few days before this I had met another friend, and 

 had explained to him what I was doing. He told me I 

 ought to read Professor Mivart's " Genesis of Species," 

 and that if I did so I should find there were two sides to 

 " natural selection." Thinking, as so many people do — 

 and no wonder — that " natural selection " and evolution 

 were much the same thing, and having found so many 

 attacks upon evolution produce no effect upon me, I 

 declined to read it. I had as yet no idea that a writer 

 could attack Neo-Darwinism without attacking evolution. 

 But my friend kindly sent me a copy ; and when I read it, 

 I found myself in the presence of arguments different from 

 those I had met with hitherto, and did not see my way to 

 answering them. I had, however, read only a small part 

 of Professor Mivart's work, and was not fully awake to 

 the position, when the friend referred to in the preceding 

 paragraph called on me. 



When I had finished the " Genesis of Species," I felt 

 that something was certainly wanted which should give a 

 definite aim to the variations whose accumulation was to 

 amount ultimately to specific and generic differences, and 

 that without this there could have been no progress in 



