aware that such a theory existed.  Mr. Herbert Spencer wrote to the Athenaeum (April 5, 1884), and claimed the theory for himself, but, in spite of his doing this, he has never, that I have seen, referred to the matter again.  I have dealt sufficiently with his claim in my book Luck or Cunning.  Lastly, Professor Hering himself has never that I know of touched his own theory since the single short address read in 1870, and translated by me in 1881.  Everyone, even its originator, except myself, seems afraid to open his mouth about it.  Of course the inference suggests itself that other people have more sense than I have.  I readily admit it; but why have so many of our leaders shown such a strong hankering after the theory, if there is nothing in it?

The deadlock that I have pointed out as existing in Darwinism will, I doubt not, lead ere long to a consideration of Professor Hering’s theory.  English biologists are little likely to find Weismann satisfactory for long, and if he breaks down there is nothing left for them but Lamarck, supplemented by the important and elucidatory corollary on his theory proposed by Professor Hering.  When the time arrives for this to obtain a hearing it will be confirmed, doubtless, by arguments clearer and more forcible than any I have been able to adduce; I shall then be delighted to resign the championship which till then I shall continue, as for some years past, to have much pleasure in sustaining.  Heretofore my satisfaction has mainly lain in the fact that more of our prominent men of science have seemed anxious to claim the theory than to refute it; in the confidence thus engendered I leave it to any fuller consideration which the outline I have above given may incline the reader to bestow upon it.

Footnotes: 

{19} I am indebted to one of Butler’s contemporaries at Cambridge, the Rev Dr. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., and also to Mr. John F. Harris, both of St. John’s College, for help in finding and dating Butler’s youthful contributions to the Eagle.

{20} This gentleman, on the death of his father in 1866, became the Rev. Sir Philip Perring, Bart.

{22} The late Sir Julius von Haast, K.C.M.G., appointed Provincial Geologist in 1860, was ennobled by the Austrian Government and knighted by the British.  He died in 1887.

{59} A lecture delivered at the Working Men’s College, Great Ormond Street, 30th January, 1892.

{99} Published in the Universal Review, July, 1888.

{110} Published in the Universal Review, December, 1890.

{127} Published in the Universal Review, May, 1889.  As I have several times been asked if the letters here reprinted were not fabricated by Butler himself, I take this opportunity of stating that they are authentic in every particular, and that the originals are now in my possession.—­R.  A. S.

{142} An address delivered at the Somerville Club, February 27th, 1895.