Spencer has adopted it. It is the theory which every one except Mr.
Allen associates with Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, but more especially
(and on the whole I suppose justly) with Lamarck.
"I venture to think," continues Mr. Allen, "that the first way [Mr.
Darwin's], if we look it clearly in the face, will be seen to be
_practically unthinkable_; and that we have therefore no alternative but
to accept the second."
These writers go round so quickly and so completely that there is no
keeping pace with them. "As to Materialism," he writes presently,
"surely it is more profoundly materialistic to suppose that mere physical
causes operating on the germ can determine minute physical and material
changes in the brain, which will in turn make the individuality what it
is to be, than to suppose _that all brains are what they are in virtue of
antecedent function_. The one creed makes the man depend mainly upon the
accidents of molecular physics in a colliding germ cell and sperm cell;
_the other makes him depend mainly upon the doings and gains of his
ancestors as modified and altered by himself_."
Here is a sentence taken almost at random from the body of the article:--
"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.
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