"The first hypothesis (Mr Darwin's) is one that throws no light upon any
of the facts. The second hypothesis (which Mr. Allen is pleased to call
Mr. Herbert Spencer's) is one that explains them all with transparent
lucidity." {252b}
So that Mr. Darwin, according to Mr. Allen, is clean out of it. Truly
when Mr. Allen makes stepping-stones of his dead selves, he jumps upon
them to some tune. But then Mr. Darwin is dead now. I have not heard of
his having given Mr. Allen any manuscripts as he gave Mr. Romanes. I
hope Mr. Herbert Spencer will not give him any. If I was Mr. Spencer and
found my admirers crowning me with Lamarck's laurels, I think I should
have something to say to them.
What are we to think of a writer who declares that the theory that
specific and generic changes are due to use and disuse "explains _all the
facts_ with transparent lucidity"?
Lamarck's hypothesis is no doubt a great help and a great step toward
Professor Hering's; it makes a known cause underlie variations, and thus
is free from those fatal objections which Professor Mivart and others
have brought against the theory of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace; but how
does the theory that use develops an organism explain why offspring
repeat the organism at all? How does the Lamarckian hypothesis explain
the sterility of hybrids, for example? The sterility of hybrids has been
always considered one of the great _cruces_ in connection with any theory
of Evolution. How again does it explain reversion to long-lost
characters and the resumption of feral characteristics? the phenomena of
old age? the principle that underlies longevity? the reason why the
reproductive system is generally the last to arrive at maturity, and why
few further developments take place in any organism after this has been
fully developed? the sterility of many animals under captivity? the
development in both males and females, under certain circumstances, of
the characteristics of the opposite sex? the latency of memory? the
unconsciousness with which we develop, and with which instinctive actions
are performed? How does any theory advanced either by Lamarck, Mr.
Herbert Spencer, or Mr. Darwin explain, or indeed throw light upon these
facts until supplemented with the explanation given of them in Life and
Habit--for which I must refer the reader to that work itself?
People may say what they like about "the experience of the race," {254a}
"the registration of experiences continued for numberless generations,"
{254b} "infinity of experiences," {254c} "lapsed intelligence," &c., but
until they make Memory, in the most uncompromising sense of the word, the
key to all the phenomena of Heredity, they will get little help to the
better understanding of the difficulties above adverted to. Add this to
the theory of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, and the points which I
have above alluded to receive a good deal of "lucidity."
But to return to Mr. Romanes: however much he and Mr. Allen may differ
about the merits of Mr. Darwin, they were at any rate not long since
cordially agreed in vilipending my unhappy self, and are now saying very
much what I have been saying for some years past. I do not deny that
they are capable witnesses. They will generally see a thing when a
certain number of other people have come to do so. I submit that, no
matter how grudgingly they give their evidence, the tendency of that
evidence is sufficiently clear to show that the opinions put forward in
Life and Habit, Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory, deserve
the attention of the reader.
I may perhaps deal with Mr. Romanes' recent work more fully in the sequel
to Life and Habit on which I am now engaged. For the present it is
enough to say that if he does not mean what Professor Hering and, _longo
intervallo_, myself do, he should not talk about habit or experience as
between successive generations, and that if he does mean what we do--which
I suppose he does--he should have said so much more clearly and
consistently than he has.