234 Luck, or Cunning ? 
monly descend to offspring.* I know Brown-Séquard 
considered it to be the morbid state of the nervous system 
consequent upon the mutilation that is transmitted, rather 
than the immediate effects of the mutilation, but this - 
distinction is somewhat finely drawn. 
When Professor Ray Lankester talks about the “ other 
effects of directly transforming agents” being rarely 
transmitted, he should first show us the directly transform- 
ing agents. Lamarck, as I have said, knows them not. “ It 
is little short of an absurdity,’ he continues, ‘‘ for people 
to come forward at this epoch, when evolution is at length 
accepted solely because of Mr. Darwin’s doctrine, and coolly 
to propose to replace that doctrine by the old notion so 
often tried and rejected.” 
Whether this is an absurdity or no, Professor Lankester 
will do well to learn to bear it without showing so much 
warmth, for it is one that is becoming common. Evolution 
has been accepted not “‘ because of ” Mr. Darwin’s doctrine, 
but because Mr. Darwin so fogged us about his doctrine 
that we did not understand it. We thought we were 
backing his bill for descent with modification, whereas we 
were in reality backing it for descent with modification by 
means of naturalselection from among fortuitous variations. 
This last really is Mr. Darwin’s theory, except in so far as 
it is also Mr. A. R. Wallace’s; descent, alone, is just as 
much and just as little Mr. Darwin’s doctrine as it is 
Professor Ray Lankester’s or mine. I grant it is in great 
measure through Mr. Darwin’s books that descent has 
become so widely accepted ; it has become so through his 
books, but in spite of, rather than by reason of, his doctrine. 
Indeed his doctrine was no doctrine, but only a back-door 
for himself to escape by in the event of flood or fire; the 
flood and fire have come ; it remains to be seen how far the 
door will work satisfactorily. 
* See Mr. Darwin’s ‘‘ Animals and Plants under Domestication,” 
vol.i., p. 466, &c., ed. 1875. 
