Chapter V 
Statement of the Question at Issue 
F the two points referred to in the opening sentence 
of this book—I mean the connection between 
heredity and memory, and the reintroduction of design 
into organic modification—the second is both the more 
important and the one which stands most in need of support. 
The substantial identity between heredity and memory 
is becoming generally admitted; as regards my second 
point, however, I cannot flatter myself that I have made 
much way against the formidable array of writers on the 
neo-Darwinian side; I shall therefore devote the rest of 
my book as far as possible to this subject only. Natural 
selection (meaning by these words the preservation in the 
ordinary course of nature of favourable variations that 
are supposed to be mainly matters of pure good luck and 
in no way arising out of function) has been, to use an 
Americanism than which I can find nothing apter, the 
biggest biological boom of the last quarter of a century ; 
it is not, therefore, to be wondered at that Professor Ray 
Lankester, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Grant Allen, and others, 
should show some impatience at seeing its value as prime 
means of modification called in question. Within the last 
few months, indeed, Mr. Grant Allen* and Professor Ray 
Lankestert in England, and Dr. Ernst Krause} in Germany, 
have spoken and written warmly in support of the theory 
* “Charles Darwin.”” Longmans, 1885. 
¢ Lectures at the London Institution, Feb., 1886. 
+ ‘Charles Darwin.”’ Leipzig, 1885. 
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