186 Luck, or Cunning ? 
Charles Darwin the variations are mainly accidental. 
The words “‘ through natural selection,” therefore, in the 
passage last quoted carry no weight, for it is the wrong 
natural selection that is, or ought to be, intended ; practi- 
cally, however, they derived a weight from Mr. Darwin’s 
name to which they had no title of their own, and we 
understood that “‘ the theory of descent with slow modifica- 
tion’ through the kind of natural selection ostensibly 
intended by Mr. Darwin was a quasi-synonymous expres- 
sion for the transmutation of species. We understood— 
so far as we understood anything beyond that we were to 
believe in descent with modification—that natural selection 
was Mr. Darwin’s theory ; we therefore concluded, since 
Mr. Darwin seemed to say so, that the theory of the trans- 
mutation of species generally was so also. At any rate we 
felt as regards the passage last quoted that the theory of 
descent with modification was the point of attack and 
defence, and we supposed it to be the theory so often 
referred to by Mr. Darwin as ‘‘ my.” 
Again :— 
“Some of the most ancient Silurian animals, as the 
Nautilus, Lingula, &c., do not differ much from the living 
species; and it cannot on my theory be supposed that 
these old species were the progenitors,” &c. (p. 306)... . 
“Consequently if my theory be true, it is indisputable,” 
&c. (p. 307). 
Here the two “‘ my theories”’ have been altered, the’ 
first into ‘‘ our theory,”’ and the second into “ the theory,” 
both in 1869; but, as usual, the thing that remains with 
the reader is the theory of descent, and it remains morally 
and practically as much claimed when called ‘‘ the theory ” 
as during the many years throughout which the more open 
my” distinctly claimed it. 
' Again :— 
“ All the most eminent palzontologists, namely, Cuvier, 
Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, E. Forbes, &c., and all our 
