236 Luck, or Cunning ? 
argument that he has “ been refuted over and over again,” 
would refer us to some of the best chapters in the writers 
who have refuted him. My own reading has led me to 
become moderately well acquainted with the literature of 
evolution, but I have never come across a single attempt 
fairly to grapple with Lamarck, and it is plain that neither 
Isidore Geoffroy nor M. Martins knows of such an attempt 
any more than I do. When Professor Ray Lankester puts 
his finger on Lamarck’s weak places, then, but not till then, 
may he complain of those who try to replace Mr. Darwin’s 
doctrine by Lamarck’s. 
Professor Ray Lankester concludes his note thus :— 
“ That such an attempt should be made is an illustration 
of a curious weakness of humanity. Not infrequently, 
after a long contested cause has triumphed, and all have 
yielded allegiance thereto, you will find, when few genera- 
tions have passed, that men have clean forgotten what and 
who it was that made that cause triumphant, and ignor- 
antly will set up for honour the name of a traitor or an 
impostor, or attribute to a great man as a merit deeds and 
thoughts which he spent a long life in opposing.” 
Exactly so; that is what one rather feels, but surely 
Professor Ray Lankester should say ‘in trying to filch 
while pretending to oppose and to amend.” He is complain- 
ing here that people persistently ascribe Lamarck’s 
doctrine to Mr. Darwin. Of course they do; but, as I 
have already perhaps too abundantly asked, whose fault 
is this? Ifa man knows his own mind, and wants others 
to understand it, it is not often that he is misunderstood 
for any length of time. If he finds he is being misappre- 
hended in a way he does not like, he will write another book 
and make his meaning plainer. He will go on doing this 
for as long time as he thinks necessary. I do not suppose, 
for example, that people will say I originated the theory of 
descent by means of natural selection from among fortunate 
accidents, or even that I was one of its supporters as a 
