some pleasure to him if I promised to dedicate my own book to him,
and thus, however unworthy it might be, connect it with his name.
It occurred to me, of course, also that the honour to my own book
would be greater than any it could confer, but the time was not one
for balancing considerations nicely, and when I made my suggestion
to Mr. Tylor on the last occasion that I ever saw him, the manner in
which he received it settled the question. If he had lived I should
no doubt have kept more closely to my plan, and should probably
have been furnished by him with much that would have enriched the
book and made it more worthy of his acceptance; but this was not to
be.

In the course of writing I became more and more convinced that no
progress could be made towards a sounder view of the theory of
descent until people came to understand what the late Mr. Charles
Darwin's theory of natural selection amounted to, and how it was
that it ever came to be propounded. Until the mindless theory of
Charles Darwinian natural selection was finally discredited, and a
mindful theory of evolution was substituted in its place, neither
Mr. Tylor's experiments nor my own theories could stand much chance
of being attended to. I therefore devoted myself mainly, as I had
done in "Evolution Old and New," and in "Unconscious Memory," to
considering whether the view taken by the late Mr. Darwin, or the
one put forward by his three most illustrious predecessors, should
most command our assent.

The deflection from my original purpose was increased by the
appearance, about a year ago, of Mr. Grant Allen's "Charles Darwin,"
which I imagine to have had a very large circulation. So important,
indeed, did I think it not to leave Mr. Allen's statements