becoming generally admitted; as regards my second point, however, I
cannot flatter myself that I have made much way against the
formidable array of writers on the neo-Darwinian side; I shall
therefore devote the rest of my book as far as possible to this
subject only. Natural selection (meaning by these words the
preservation in the ordinary course of nature of favourable
variations that are supposed to be mainly matters of pure good luck
and in no way arising out of function) has been, to use an
Americanism than which I can find nothing apter, the biggest
biological boom of the last quarter of a century; it is not,
therefore, to be wondered at that Professor Ray Lankester, Mr.
Romanes, Mr. Grant Allen, and others, should show some impatience at
seeing its value as prime means of modification called in question.
Within the last few months, indeed, Mr. Grant Allen {70a} and
Professor Ray Lankester {70b} in England, and Dr. Ernst Krause {70c}
in Germany, have spoken and written warmly in support of the theory
of natural selection, and in opposition to the views taken by
myself; if they are not to be left in possession of the field the
sooner they are met the better.

Stripped of detail the point at issue is this;--whether luck or
cunning is the fitter to be insisted on as the main means of organic
development. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck answered this question in
favour of cunning. They settled it in favour of intelligent
perception of the situation--within, of course, ever narrower and
narrower limits as organism retreats farther backwards from
ourselves--and persistent effort to turn it to account. They made
this the soul of all development whether of mind or body.

And they made it, like all other souls, liable to aberration both