98 Luck, or Cunning ? 
are alike due to the accumulation of variations that are 
mainly accidental, fortuitous, spontaneous, that is to say, 
that cannot be reduced to any known general principle. 
According to Charles Darwin “the preservation of fav- 
oured,” or lucky, “races’’ is by far the most important 
means of modification ; according to Erasmus Darwin 
effort non sibi res sed se rebus subjungere is unquestionably 
the most potent means; roughly, therefore, there is no 
better or fairer way of putting the matter, than to say that 
Charles Darwin is the apostle of luck, and his grandfather, 
and Lamarck, of cunning. ° 
It should be observed also that the distinction between 
the organism and its surroundings—on which both systems 
are founded—is one that cannot be so universally drawn as 
we find it convenient to allege. There is a debatable ground 
of considerable extent on which ves and me, ego and 
non ego, luck and cunning, necessity and freewill, meet 
and pass into one another as night and day, or life and 
death. No one can draw a sharp line between ego and non 
ego, nor indeed any sharp line between any classes of pheno- 
mena. Every part of the ego is non ego gud organ or tool 
in use, and much of the non ego runs up into the ego and is 
inseparably united with it ; still there is enough that it is 
obviously most convenient to call ego, and enough that 
it is no less obviously most convenient to call non ego, as 
there is enough obvious day and obvious night, or obvious 
luck and obvious cunning, to make us think it advisable 
to keep separate accounts for each. 
I will say more on this head in a following chapter ; in 
this present one my business should be confined to point- 
ing out as clearly and succinctly as I can the issue 
between the two great main contending opinions concerning 
organic development that obtain among those who accept 
the theory of descent at all; nor do I believe that this can 
be done more effectually and accurately than by saying, 
as above, that Mr. Charles Darwin (whose name, by the 
