218 Luck, or Cunning ? 
This he certainly does, for on page 81 of the work itself 
he speaks of “ the distinctive notion of natural selection ” 
as having, “like all true and fruitful ideas, more than 
once flashed,” &c. I have explained usque ad nauseam, 
and will henceforth explain no longer, that natural selection 
is no “ distinctive notion ” of Mr. Darwin’s. Mr. Darwin’s 
‘distinctive notion” is natural selection from among 
fortuitous variations. 
Writing again (p. 89) of Mr. Spencer’s essay in the 
“‘ Leader,’’* Mr. Allen says :— 
“It contains, in a very philosophical and abstract 
form, the theory of ‘ descent with modification ’ without 
the distinctive Darwinian adjunct of * natural selection’ 
or survival of the fittest. Yet it was just that lever dexter- 
ously applied, and carefully weighted with the whole 
weight of his endlessly accumulated inductive instances, 
that finally enabled our modern Archimedes to move the 
world.” 
Again :— 
“To account for adaptation, for the almost perfect 
fitness of every plant and every animal to its position in 
life, for the existence (in other words) of definitely correlated 
parts and organs, we must call in the aid of survival of the 
fittest. Without that potent selective agent, our concep- 
tion of the becoming of life is a mere chaos; order and 
organisation are utterly inexplicable save by the brilliant 
illuminating ray of the Darwinian principle ’’ (p. 93). 
And yet two years previously this same principle, after 
having been thinkable for many years, had become 
“unthinkable.” 
Two years previously, writing of the Charles-Darwinian 
scheme of evolution, Mr. Allen had implied it as his opinion 
“‘ that all brains are what they are in virtue of antecedent 
function.” ‘“‘ The one creed,’’ he wrote—referring to Mr. 
Darwin’s—‘‘ makes the man depend mainly upon the 
* Given in part in ' Evolution Old and New.” 
