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.
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