78 Luck, or Cunning ? 
may have for himself, and spend according to his fancy ; 
from this, indeed, income-tax must be deducted ; still 
there remains a little margin of individual taste, and here, 
high up on this narrow, inaccessible ledge of our souls, 
from year to year a breed of not unprolific variations build 
where reason cannot reach them to despoil them; for 
de gustibus non est disputandum. 
Here we are as far as we can go. Fancy, which some- 
times sways so much and is swayed by so little, and which 
sometimes, again, is so hard to sway, and moves so little 
when it is swayed; whose ways have a method of their 
own, but are not as our ways—fancy, lies on the extreme 
borderland of the realm within which the writs of our 
thoughts run, and extends into that unseen world wherein 
they have no jurisdiction. Fancy is as the mist upon the 
horizon which blends earth and sky; where, however, it 
approaches nearest to the earth and can be reckoned with, 
it is seen as melting into desire, and this as giving birth 
to design and effort. As the nett result and outcome of 
these last, living forms grow gradually but persistently 
into physical. conformity with their own intentions, and 
become outward and visible signs of the inward and 
spiritual faiths, or wants of faith, that have been most 
within them. They thus very gradually, but none the 
less effectually, design themselves. 
In effect, therefore, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck 
introduce uniformity into the moral and spiritual worlds 
as it was already beginning to be introduced into the 
physical. According to both these writers development has 
ever been a matter of the same energy, effort, good sense, 
and perseverance, as tend to advancement of life now 
among ourselves. In essence it is neither more nor less 
than this, as the rain-drop which denuded an ancient 
formation is of the same kind as that which is denuding 
a modern one, though its effect may vary in geometrical 
ratio with the effect it has produced already. As we are 
