"We are always seeing something which adds to our total stock of
memories; we are always learning and doing something new. The vast
majority of these experiences are similar in kind to those already
passed through by our ancestors: they add nothing to the inheritance
of the race. . . . Though they leave physical traces on the
individual, they do not so far affect the underlying organisation of
the brain as to make the development of after-brains somewhat
different from previous ones. But there are certain functional
activities which do tend so to alter the development of after-brains;
certain novel or sustained activities which apparently result in the
production of new correlated brain elements or brain connections
hereditarily transmissible as increased potentialities of similar
activity in the offspring."
Of Natural Selection Mr. Allen writes much, as Professor Mivart and
others have been writing for many years past.
"It seems to me," he says, "easy to understand how survival of the
fittest may result in progress starting from such functionally produced
gains, but impossible to understand how it could result in progress if it
had to start in mere accidental structural increments due to spontaneous
variation alone." {252a}
Mr. Allen may say this now, but until lately he has been among the first
to scold any one else who said so.