for better and worse. They held that some organisms show more ready
wit and savoir faire than others; that some give more proofs of
genius and have more frequent happy thoughts than others, and that
some have even gone through waters of misery which they have used as
wells.

The sheet anchor both of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck is in good sense
and thrift; still they are aware that money has been sometimes made
by "striking oil," and ere now been transmitted to descendants in
spite of the haphazard way in which it was originally acquired. No
speculation, no commerce; "nothing venture, nothing have," is as
true for the development of organic wealth as for that of any other
kind, and neither Erasmus Darwin nor Lamarck hesitated about
admitting that highly picturesque and romantic incidents of
developmental venture do from time to time occur in the race
histories even of the dullest and most dead-level organisms under
the name of "sports;" but they would hold that even these occur most
often and most happily to those that have persevered in well-doing
for some generations. Unto the organism that hath is given, and
from the organism that hath not is taken away; so that even "sports"
prove to be only a little off thrift, which still remains the sheet
anchor of the early evolutionists. They believe, in fact, that more
organic wealth has been made by saving than in any other way. The
race is not in the long run to the phenomenally swift nor the battle
to the phenomenally strong, but to the good average all-round
organism that is alike shy of Radical crotchets and old world
obstructiveness. Festina, but festina lente--perhaps as involving
so completely the contradiction in terms which must underlie all
modification--is the motto they would assign to organism, and Chi va
piano va lontano, they hold to be a maxim as old, if not as the