228 Luck, or Cunning? 
Mr. Darwin than they may be with him, if they think it 
worth while, for “actually defending’ the exploded 
notion of natural selection—for assuredly the Charles- 
Darwinian system is now more exploded than Lamarck’s is. 
What Professor Ray Lankester says about Lamarck 
and “ directly transforming agents ’”’ will mislead those 
who take his statement without examination. Lamarck 
does not say that modification is effected by means of 
“directly transforming agents ;"* nothing can be more 
alien to the spirit of his teaching. With him the action 
of the external conditions of existence (and these are the 
only transforming agents intended by Professor Ray 
Lankester) is not direct, but indirect. Change in surround- 
ings changes the organism’s outlook, and thus changes its 
desires ; desires changing, there is corresponding change in 
the actions performed ; actions changing, a corresponding 
change is by-and-by induced in the organs that perform 
them ; this, if long continued, will be transmitted ; becom- 
ing augmented by accumulation in many successive genera- 
tions, and further modifications perhaps arising through 
further changes in surroundings, the change will amount 
ultimately to specific and generic difference. Lamarck 
knows no drug, nor operation, that will medicine one 
organism into another, and expects the results of adaptive 
effort to be so gradual as to be only perceptible when ac- 
cumulated in the course of many generations. When, 
therefore, Professor Ray Lankester speaks of Lamarck 
as having ‘‘advocated directly transforming agents,” 
he either does not know what he is talking about, or he is 
trifling with his readers. Professor Ray Lankester con- 
tinues :— 
““ They do not seem to be aware of this, for they make no 
attempt to examine Mr. Darwin’s accumulated facts and 
arguments.” Professor Ray Lankester need not shake Mr. 
Darwin’s ‘‘ accumulated facts and arguments” at us. We 
have taken more pains to understand them than Professor 
