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FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN

Columbia WinibtxQiti^ Biological ^txits.

EDITED BY
HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN.

1. FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN.

By Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sc.D. Princeton.

2. AMPHIOXUS AND THE ANCESTRY OF THE VERTEBRATES.

By Arthur Willey, B.Sc. Lond. Univ.

3. FISHES, LIVING AND FOSSIL. An Introductory Study.

By Bashford Dean, Ph.D. Columbia.

4. THE CELL IN DEVELOPMENT AND INHERITANCE.

By Edmund B. Wilson, Ph.D. J. H.U.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY BIOLOGICAL SERIES. I.

From the Greeks to Darwin

AN OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE EVOLUTION IDEA

BY

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D.

DA COSTA PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY; CURATOR IN THE
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

SECOND EDITION

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1902

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1894,
By M ACM ill an AND CO.

Set up and electrotyped July, 1894. Reprinted September, 1896;
December, 1899; December, 1902.

NarbJootJ ^rfss

J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

TO
MY REVERED TEACHER IN PHILOSOPHY

EX-PRESIDENT OF PRINCETON COLLEGE

149518

PREFACE.

This volume has grown out of lectures first de-
livered in Princeton in 1890, upon the period
between Buffon and Darwin, and completed in a
fuller course delivered in Columbia in 1893, which
covered also the period before Buffon. When I
began the study, my object was to bring forward
the many strong and true features of pre-Darwinian
Evolution, which are so generally passed over or
misunderstood. When all the materials were
brought together from the earliest times, the evi-
dence of continuity in the development of the idea
became more clear, and to trace these lines of
development has gradually become the central
motive of these lectures. More thorough research,
which may, perhaps, be stimulated by these out-
lines will, I believe, strengthen this evidence.

I am greatly indebted to my friends Professor
George Macloskie and Professor Alexander T.
Ormond for assistance and critical advice in con-
nection with the revision of the proofs.

H. F. o.

Columbia College, July nth, 1894.

vii

CONTENTS.

-»o«-

PAGE

The Anticipation and Interpretation of Nature i

Preliminary Survey. Environment of the Evolution idea. Periods
of its development. Nature of the idea. The scientific method of
thought. The Advance of Philosophy. Advance of Zoology and
Botany. Embryology.

29

II. Among the Greeks

Conditions of Greek thought. The Greek Periods. lonians and
Eleatics ; Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes. The
Physicists: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxagoras.
Aristotle and his followers. Pliny, Epicurus, Lucretius, The legacy
of the Greeks to later Evolution.

III. The Theologians and Natural Philosophers 69

Transition from Greek Philosophy to Christian Theology. The
Fathers and Schoolmen : Gregory, Augustine, Erigena, Aquinas.
Arabic Science and Philosophy: Avicenna, Avempace, Abubacer.
Bruno and Suarez. The awakening of Science. Characteristics of
Evolution in Philosophy. The Natural Philosophers : Bacon, Des-
cartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Lessing, Herder, Schelling.

IV. The Evolutionists of the Eighteenth Century 106

The two series of Evolutionists. The speculative Evolutionists :
Duret, Kircher, Maupertuis, Diderot, Bonnet, De Maillet, Robinet,
Oken. The Naturalists : Linnaeus, Buffon, E. Darwin.

V. From Lamarck to St. Hilaire 152

Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. Lamarck. Goethe. Treviranus.
Cuvier. Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Discussion between Cuvier and St.
Hilaire. Bory de St. Vincent. Isidore St. Hilaire. Decline of the
Evolution idea.

VI. Darwin 209

The first half-century. Miscellaneous writers. The Embryolo-
gists: Meckel, Baer, Serres. The followers of Buffon : Herbert,
Buch, Haldeman, Spencer. The Progressionists : Chambers, Owen.
The Selectionists: Wells, Matthew, St. Hilaire, Naudin, Wallace.
Darwin. Darwin and Wallace in 1858. Retrospect.

ix

Wir konnen bei Betrachtung des Weltgebaudes in seiner weitesten
Ausdehnung, in seiner letzten Teilbarkeit uns der Vorstellung nicht
erwehren, dass dem Ganzen eine Idee zum Grunde liege, wornach Gott
in der Natur, die Natur in Gott von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit schafFen und
wirken moge. Anschauung, Betrachtung, Nachdenken fiihren uns
naher an jene Geheimnisse. Wir erdreisten uns und wagen auch
Ideen ; wir bescheiden uns und bilden Begriffe, die analog jenen
Uranfangen sein mochten. — Goethe.

I.

THE ANTICIPATION AND INTERPRE-
TATION OF NATURE.

There are and can exist but two ways of investigating and discovering truth.
The one hurries on rapidly from the senses and particulars to the most general
axioms, and from them, as principles and their supposed indisputable truth,
derives and discovers the intermediate axioms. This is the way now in use. The
other constructs its axioms from the senses and particulars by ascending continu-
ally and gradually till it finally arrives at the most general axioms, which is the true
but unattempted way.

We are wont to call that human reasoning which we apply to Nature the
anticipation of Nature (as being rash and premature), and that which is properly
deduced from thmgs the interpretation of Nature. — BACON, Novum Orgamim.

In the growth of the numerous lesser ideas
which have conversred into the central idea of the
history of life by Evolution, we find ancient pedi-
grees for all that we are apt to consider modern.
Evolution has reached its present fulness by slow
additions in twenty-four centuries. When the
truths and absurdities of Greek, mediaeval, and
sixteenth to nineteenth century speculation and
observation are brought together, it becomes clear
that they form a continuous whole, that the influ-
ences^ pi early upon later thought are greater than
has been believed, that Darwin owes more even to
the Greeks than we have~eveF recognized. It is
true that until 1858 speculation far outran fact,

D. H. HILL UBRARY
North Carolina State College

2 ANTIC IP A TION AND INTER PRE TA TION OF NA TURE,

and that the development of the idea was at times
arrested and even retrogressive ; yet the conviction
grows with inquiry that the Evolution law was
reached not by any decided leap, but by the pro-
gressive development of every subordinate idea
connected with it, until it was recognized as a
whole by Lamarck, and later by Darwin.

In order to prove this, I endeavour to trace
back some of these lesser ideas to their sources,
and to bring the comparatively little known early
evolutionists into their true relief as original think-
ers and contributors, or mere borrowers and imi-
tators. This is possible only because such search
has already been very ably made among certain
authors and in certain periods by other writers, to
whom I am largely indebted for whatever success
I have attained in this first attempt to cover the
whole period and to establish the evidence of con-
tinuity.

Little national bias has been shown in the search
for anticipations of Darwin among his precursors ;
as one instance, the highest praises of Lamarck
have been sounded in Germany, and of Goethe in
France. The greatest defects I find in the histori-
cal literature of this subject are the lack of sense
of proportion as to the original merits of different
writers, and the non-appreciation of the continuity
of evolution thought. In general, we need more
critical and thorough work than has yet been given
us. Many heralded anticipations are not anticipa-

INTR OD UC TION. 3

tions at all, if we speak of Darwinism in the
restricted sense and not as all-embracine. Others
are^genuine, ye^tliey^ consist of speculative ideas
which Jiad been retold or rediscovered several times
over, as in the case of the law of Survival of the
Fittest.

The estimates I have reached as to several of
the founders of the idea are therefore different
from those advanced by others. By considering
together all the historic stages of the development
even in a brief manner, we can trace the continuity,
the increasing momentum of the idea, and conse-
quently the increasing indebtedness to previous
suggestion. We can see how many of the prophe-
cies were themselves foretold. Most obvious is the
fact that Greek speculations and suggestions were
borrowed and used over and over again as if origi-
nal, continuity in the lesser ideas which cluster
around Evolution being quite as marked as in the
main idea. To fully follow out all such genetic
threads would, however, require a far more ex-
haustive research than this aims to be.

Apart from suggestion we meet with many re-
markable coincidences in the lines of independent
and even simultaneous discovery, notably those
between Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, between
Lamarck and Treviranus, before we reach the
crowning and most exceptional case of Darwin
and Wallace. At different periods similar facts
were leadinQ^ men to similar conclusions, and we

o

4 ANTIC IP A TION AND INTER PRE TA TION OF NA TURE.

gather many fine illustrations of the force of uncon-
scious induction. Means of intercommunication
were slow, and we should advance cautiously before
concluding that any of the greater evolutionists
were dealing with borrowed ideas.

Finally, I have attempted to estimate each author
from his thought as a whole, before placing him
in the scales with his predecessors, contemporaries,
and successors. When we study single passages,
we are often led widely afield. Haeckel, for ex-
ample, appears to have far overstated the relative
merits of Oken, a writer who shines forth brightly
in certain passages, and goes under a cloud in
others, his sum total being obscure and weak.
Krause has placed Erasmus Darwin over Lamarck
without sufficient consideration. Huxley has treated
Treviranus and Lamarck with almost equal re-
spect ; they are really found to be most unequal
when tested by their approach to the modern con-
ception of Evolution. We must inquire into the
sources or grounds of the conclusions advanced by
each writer, how far derived from others, how far
from observation of Nature, and consider the sound-
ness of each as well as his suggestiveness and origi-
nality, before we can judge fairly what permanent
links he may have added or welded into the chain
of thought.

INTR OD UCTION,

Outlines of the Whole Development.

The history, as a whole, before Darwin, at first
sight appears to have been mainly the anticipation y^
of Nature; but closer examination reveals much
genuine Interpretation of Nature. Before the mid-
dle of this century, In fact, natural science was not
ready for Evolution on the Inductive line. The
way had to be paved for it; one proof of this is
found in the failure of the strong Evolution move-
ment in France during the latter part of the last,
and beginning of this century. In the middle of
this century came the time and the man who ranks
as the great central thinker. Under the Impetus of
Darwin, the first steps were to establish, as a natural
law, what had ranked as an hypothesis or theory,
and this has been most thoroughly done In the last
thirty-five years. We are now taking our uncertain
steps in search of the separate factors of this law,
and cannot foresee when these will be completed.
' Before and after Darwin ' will always be the ante
et post urbem conditam of biological history. Before.
_DarwIn, the theory; after Darwin, the factors.

We remember that there are usually three stages
In connection with the discovery of a law of Nature ;
first, that of dim suggestion in pure speculation,
with eyes closed to facts; second, that of clear
statement as a tentative or working hypothesis in
an explanation of certain facts; and finally, the

6 ANTICIPA TIOiV AND INTERPRETA TION OF NA TURE.

-" proof or demonstration. Darwin came in for the
\ proof, profiting richly by the hard struggles of his
predecessors over the first two stages. Lamarck
\ has lately risen in popular knowledge as having
propounded Evolution, but among his contempora-
ries and predecessors in France, Germany, and
England, we find Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe,
Treviranus, and searching for their inspiration, we
ire led back to the natural philosophers, begin-
ning with Bacon, and ending with Herder. Among
these men we find the second birth or renaissance
of the idea, and among_the Greeks its first birth.

Evolution, as a natural explanation of the origin
of the higher forms of life, succeeded the old
mythology and autochthony in Greece, and devel-
oped from the teachings of Thales and Anaximan-
der into those of Aristotle. This great philosopher
had a general conception of the origin of higher
species by descent from lower, yet he could not
know of any actual Evolution series, such as we
have derived from Paleontology. He also consid-
ered certain of the factors of Evolution underlying
the general law, and it is startling to find him, over
two thousand years ago, clearly stating, and then
rejecting, the theory of the Survival of the Fittest
as an explanation of the evolution of adaptive
structures.

The Greek natural history literature, from begin-
ning to end, is a continuous source of pleasure
and surprise. Amid wide differences of opinion as

INTR OD UC TION. y

to how far the Greeks, actually anticipated later
discoveries, the true conclusion is, that they antici-
pated many of our modern theories by suggestion ;
thus they carried the Evolution idea well into its
suggestive stage, which was so much ground gained
for those who took it up in Europe. Greek specu-
lations greatly hastened the final result, although,
judged by modern scientific standards, they arose
mainly as a series of happy conjectures. We know
that Greek philosophy tinctured early Christian
theology ; it is not so generally realized that the
Aristotelian notion of the development of life led
to the true interpretation of the Mosaic account
of the Creation.

There was, in fact, a long Greek period in the
history of the Evolution idea, extending among the
Fathers of the Church, and later, among some of
the Schoolmen, in their commentaries upon Crea-
tion which accord very closely with the modern
thelstic conceptions of Evolution. If the ortho-
doxy of Augustine had remained the teaching of
the Church, the final establishment of Evolution
would have come far earlier than it did, certainly
durine the eighteenth instead of the nineteenth
century, and the bitter controversy over this truth
of Nature would never have arisen. As late as
the seventeenth century, the Jesuit Suarez and
others contended that the Book of Genesis con-
tained a literal account of the mode of Creation,
and thereby Special Creation acquired a firm

8 ANTICIPA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA TURE.

status as a theory in the contemporary philosophy.
Singularly enough, Milton's epics appeared shortly
afterwards, exerting an equally profound influence
upon English Protestant thought, so that Huxley
has aptly termed Special Creation, ' the Miltonic
hypothesis.' Thus the opportunity of a free, un-
checked development out of natural science was lost.
During the long Middle Ages, the Evolution
idea made no advance. Finally it began to retro-
gress, when Greek natural philosophy shared in the
general suppression of the rationalistic movement
of thought of Arabic origin. Later the hard and
fast conceptions and definitions of species, devel-
oped in the rapid rise of systematic Botany and
Zoology, were grafted upon the Mosaic account of
the Creation, establishing a Special Creation theory
for the origin of each species. Later still, when
it was discovered in Paleontology that species of
different kinds had succeeded each other in time,
the ' Special ' theory was again remodelled to
cover a succession of creations extending: down
almost to the present day. Thus an ecclesiasticaP
dogma developed into a pseudo-scientific theory
full of inconsistencies but stoutly maintained by
leading zoologists and botanists. ^i

-^ The history of the central Evolution idea be-
fore Darwin therefore follows its rise and fall as
the broad explanation of the history of life, which
we must throw into contrast with the steady rise
of the special knowledge of the lesser ideas which

INTR OD UC TION. q

centre in it. As a whole, it rose among the Greeks,
declined with the decay of Greek science, was kept
alive by Greek influence in Theology, and fell in
the opposition to rationalism. When it was first
revived in France and Germany, it was either
inspired by Greek freedom of speculation and sug-
gestiveness, or permeated by Greek fallacies.

In the first revival the natural philosophers
took the lead, followed, in the second, by a series
of rashly speculative writers. Then the working
and observing naturalists took it up. Considerino-
the Greek movement as the first, this was the
second genuine progressive movement towards the
Evolution theory; it reached its height with La-
marck, and then declined, or rather failed to make
a permanent or widespread impression. In the
middle of this century, all the ground gained was
apparently but not really lost ; science, church, and
laity were almost at one upon the Special Creation
theory. The open dissenters were comparatively
few and very guarded in the expression of their
opinions. Young Darwin was among the few who
kept before his mind both theories ; he met and
successfully overcame the great tide of adverse
opinion ; a conquest which Germany has recognized
by rechristening Evolution — Darwinisrnus. Since
1858 more works upon Evolution have appeared
each year than in all the centuries previous.

In this more recent history, which I hope to take
up in the same spirit in another course, we again

I O AN TI CI PA TION AND INTER PRE TA TION OF NA TURE.

trace the rise and fall of certain ideas ; even our
present thought leaders having their remote paral-
lels in the past. For even amidst our present
wealth of facts the impassable boundaries of human
thought seem to confine us to unconscious revivals
of Greek conceptions. There are many observers,
but few who can strike out into the absolutely
virgin soil of novel suggestion.

The special phases of Evolution development
may accordingly be marked off in the following
manner: —

The Anticipation of Nature : Greek Evolution.

I. 640 B.C.-1600 A.D.

Greek Evolution in Christian Theology ; in Arabic

Philosophy.

The rise, decline, revival, and final decline of the
Greek Natural History and Greek conception of
Evolution. Of this period were Thales, Anaxi-
mander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Heraclitus,
Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Aristotle,-^
Epicurus, Lucretius, Gregory, Augustine, Bruno,
Avempace, Abubacer.

The Interpretation of Nature : Modern Evo-
lution.

II. 1600-1800 A.D.

Philosophical Evolution.

Emancipation of Botany and Zoology from Greek
traditions.

INTR OD UC TION.

II

The beginnings of Modern Evolution as part of
a natural order of the universe. Suggestions of
inductive Evolution, as based upon the transfor-
mation and filiation of species, by the natural phi-
losophers, Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, Hume, Kant,
Lessing, Herder, Schelling.

Revival of Greek EvohUion ideas in specula-
tive form by such speculative philosophical writers
and naturalists as Maupertuis, Diderot, De IMaillet,
Robinet, Bonnet, Oken.

in. 1730-1850 A.D.
Modern Inductive Evolution, 3^ Period: Buff on

to St. Hi lair e.

Rapid extension of Zoology, Botany and Paleon-
tology. Rise and decline of inductive Evolution.
Scattered observation and speculation upon the
filiation and transformation of species.

Linn^us, Buffon, E. Darwin, Lamarck, Goethe,
Treviranus, Geof. St. Hilaire, St. Vincent, Is. St.
Hilaire. Miscellaneous writers : Grant, Rafinesque,
Virey, Dujardin, d'Halloy, Chevreul, Godron, Leidy,
Unger, Carus, Lecoq, Schaafhausen, Wolff, Meckel,
Von Baer, Serres, Herbert, Buch, Wells, Matthew^
Naudin, Haldeman, Spencer, Chambers, Owen.

IV. 1858-1893 A.D.

Modern Inductive Evolution, /[t/i Period : Da7"win,

Wallace.

Evolution established inductively and deductively
as a law of Nature. The factor of Natural Sclcc-

1 2 ANTICIPA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA JURE.

tion established. Observation and speculation upon
other factors of Evolution.

No sharp lines actually separated these periods ;
each passed gradually into the next. The decline
of Greek, and especially of Aristotelian influence
in natural science, was extremely gradual, and was
overlapped by the awakening of the spirit of origi-
nal research upon animals and plants, and of the
science of medicine. Similarly, what we may call
the Philosophers' period ran insensibly into the
Buffon or third period, for the later naturalists
began their work contemporaneously with the later
philosophers. Perhaps the sharpest transition was
at the close of the third period, in which a distinct
anti-Evolution school had sprung up and succeeded
in firmly entrenching itself, so that Darwin and
Wallace began the present era with some ab-
ruptness.

Environment of the Evolution Idea.

As we have seen in this resume, the idea had
a lone strusrele for growth and existence in the
twenty-four centuries between Thales and Darwin,
yet it never w^holly suspended animation. I may
emphasize again the standpoint of these lectures,
that the final conception of Evolution is to be
regarded as a cluster of many subsidiary ideas,
which slowly evolved in the environment of advan-
cing human knowledge. Like an animal or plant,

ENVIRONMENT. 1 3

made up of many different parts which have been
added one by one along the ages, we can take up
this history as we should a bit of biological research ;
consider the idea as livinor and still m-owino- and
seek the first stages of each of its parts. These
w^e will find in the earliest o^uesses as to the orio-in
of life from matter; in conjectures about develop-
ment and reproduction ; in early observed evidences
of heredity, degeneration, variation, and of the
affiliation between organisms ; in the first apprecia-
tion of environment and its influences, of internal
changes in the body and their influences, of adapta-
tion or fitness, of the survival of the fittest orean-
isms, and finally of the survival of the fittest organs.
As each part of every organism has begun as a
rudiment and followed its own independent history,
so each of these subsidiary ideas rose in a crude
form, and became increasingly clear and definite.

We have then three objects in view : first, to
follow the broad idea of Evolution as a natural
law; second, to trace back the birth and develop-
ment of each of its parts ; third, to keep constantly
in mind the chano^ino^ environment of knowleds^e
and prejudice. The uncongenial influences were by
no means confined to those mentioned above ; tlie
introduction and long persistence of scientific falla-
cies, such as Abiogenesis, the uncertain methods of
scientific thinking, the limited knowledge of Nature,
and especially of animal and plant life, are all to be
considered. As these were cleared away, the envi-

~\

1 4 ANTIC IP A TION AND INTER PRE TA TION OF NA TURE.

ronment became more congenial, and the idea began
its unchecked development.

If we look at the idea in itself, we first dis-
tinguish between the law of Evolution as an expla-
nation of the origin of all forms of life; second, the
evidences for such a law, and third, the theories
and conjectures as to the natural causes or factors
underlying this law or constituting it. The full
conception came very late. _Apparently Lamarck
was the first to grasp Evolution in its modern ,
significance, and to see the analogy between the J
past history of life and a great widely branching
tree, having its roots in the simplest organisms,
its shorter branches in the lower, and its longer
branches in the higher forms of life. According
to this now familiar analogy, the living forms of
to-day are the terminal twigs of great branches
which represent the lines of extinct ancestors.
These branches united near the trunk with others,
whilst still other branches, with their terminal
branchlets, have entirely died out in past time.
Or, to trace the history upwards instead of down-
wards and begin at the roots, the lower branches
of the tree are comparatively few, and represent the
great classes of animals which divided and sub-
divided into orders, sub-orders, families, genera,
species, and so on.

Prior to Lamarck this branching nature of de-
scent was only very crudely perceived. This was
because Aristotle's general view that the existing

ENVIR ONMENT,

15

forms of life constituted a scale of ascent from the
polyps to man, had been revived in different as-
pects, such as the ' perfection chain ' of Leibnitz,
or the famous 'echelle' of Bonnet. It is evident
that the modern conception grew out of the dis-
covery of the extinction of earlier and intermediate
forms of life such as came from Paleontology, and
that it is essentially different from the ancient
' ladder ' or ' chain ' conception, which regarded the
existing terminal twigs of the tree as directly affili-
ated to each other, rather than through the extinct
earlier branches. Pre-Lamarckian Evolution was
mainly a conception of the gradual rise of higher
forms of life by descent and modification from
lower forms still existing. This, in contrast with
the notions of sudden production of life from the
earth or by Special Creation, was based upon slow
development, and had the distinction always of
being a naturalistic explanation.

The variety of terms under which Evolution has
figured, to a certain extent mark the chapters in
its history. In France, the early terms ' traiismuta-
tion ' and 'filiation ' have partly given way to the
more modern ' transformisme' In England, Evo-
lution has been known as the ' doctrine of deriva-
tion,' as the 'development hypothesis,' and as the
'descent theory.' For the first half of this century,
Evolution was known mainly as the Lamarckian
theory, just as later it universally became the Dar-
winian theory ; while very recently ' Lamarckism '

/

1 6 ANTICIPA TION AND INTERPRETA TION OF NA TURE.

and ' Darwinism ' have each acquired special mean-
ings, and the comprehensive term ' Evolution,' first
used by St. Hilaire in this sense, has come in as the
permanent designation of the law. This embraces
more and more as our knowledge advances, so we
speak even of the first naturalistic view^s of the
gradual succession of species as Evolution because
they contained the idea in the germ.

The Scientific Method of Thought.

The slow discovery of scientific modes of obser-
vation and thought constituted a very important
feature in the environment of the Evolution idea.
Now working, as a matter of course, by the induc-
tive-deductive or observe-and-guess method, first
observing a few facts, for a preliminary induction
or ' working hypothesis ' to apply tentatively to cer-
tain classes of facts, we hardly appreciate that this
effective mental machinery is a comparatively recent
discovery. When, again, some obstinate or newly
discovered fact compels us to abandon one 'working
hypothesis' which for a time has not only satisfied
but served us, and construct another, and finally,
after seesawing between observation and speculation,
we experience the pleasure of extracting the truth,
we have meanw^hile run up an unpayable debt to
the past.

The early Greeks were mainly deductive or a
priori in their method. Aristotle, coming much

METHODS OF THOUGHT. 1 7

later, after methods of thought had been studied,
understood and taught induction ahnost as clearly
as Bacon, but he mainly practised deduction. This
was well, for in his period and during his lifetime,
few steps in advance could have been made by the
safer method, while he unquestionably promoted
many great truths deductively. Giordano Bruno
also recommended induction to others, but found it
too tedious for his own purposes. While Bacon
upheld induction in his writings as the true philo-
sophical method, there is abundant evidence that it
was already established as the method of scientific
research by Harvey, who discovered the circulation
of the blood. Mayo and others, quite independently
and even in advance of Bacon ; so it is not just that
he should be credited with the revival of induction!
as applied to science during the seventeenth century;
he was rather the first to formulate and teach it.

During the long Middle Ages, men had not ob-
served Nature ; they had studied Aristotle's views
of Nature, and were anchored fast to Greek science
by a traditional reverence. " Bornons ce respect que
nous avons pour les anciens'' said Pascal in his
Pensees. This is also the vein of one of Bacon's
Aphorisms : " Again, the reverence for antiquity and
the authority of men who have been esteemed great
in philosophy and general unanimity, have retarded
men from advancinor in science and almost enchanted
them." Bacon also drew a satirical picture of the
condition of natural science as it was early in the

1 8 ANTICIPA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA TURE.

seventeenth century : " If the natural history extant,
though apparently of great bulk and variety, were
to be carefully weeded of its fables, antiquities,
quotations, frivolous disputes, philosophy, orna-
ments, it would shrink to a slender bulk."

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
valuable materials were slowly gathering for the
induction of Evolution. In the first revival of the
idea the advances made were mainly deductive, yet
each of the great philosophers of this period referred
to one or more observations, and clearly aimed to
establish a basis of fact for the mutability of species.
This rational method spread so rapidly that a
considerable part of the speculations of the natural-
ists Buffon and Erasmus Darwin, in the latter part
of the seventeenth century, was directly based upon
observation and was true interpretation. These
were by far the most logical thinkers among the
large number of eighteenth century evolution-
ists, who gave the imagination such free rein in
support of the idea that Evolution and the 'working
hypothesis' together fell into disrepute. A school
that was professedly purely observational and induc-
tive was established by Linnaeus and Cuvier, and,
owing to the genius of these naturalists, gained such
ascendency that it was only after a bitter struggle
in the early part of the nineteenth century, that the
discredited working hypothesis acquired its true
place as an instrument of thought. The evolu-
tionists of the eighteenth and early part of the nine-

ADVANCE OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 19

teenth century contended against great odds. They
upheld a theory as to the origin of life which could
not be established inductively in the existing state
of knowledge, and which even at the time of the
publication of the Origin of Species lacked veri-
fication. Although for the most part devout men,
they were declared arch enemies of sound religion,
and although right in their contention for the value
of the inductive-deductive method of thought, they
were also proclaimed as the enemies of sound scien-
tific thinking.

The Advance of Natural Philosophy.

The belief that the Bible contained a revelation
of scientific as well as of spiritual and moral truths
was not supported by the most prominent of the
early theologians, nor many centuries later by
Bacon. It is edifying to read the appeals of these
two great Christian philosophers, Augustine and
Bacon, for freedom of scientific thought, against the
error of searching the Scriptures for laws of Nature.

'' It very often happens," says Augustine, " that there is some
question as to the earth or the sky, or the other elements of this
world . . . respecting which one who is not a Christian has knowl-
edge derived from most certain reasoning or observation" (that
is, a scientific man), "and it is very disgraceful and mischievous
and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Christian speaking
of such matters as being according to the Christian Scriptures,
should be heard by an unbeliever talking such nonsense that the
unbeliever perceiving him to be as wide from the mark as east
from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing."

20 ANT I CI PA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA TURE.

Bacon {Novum Organum, Book I., Sec. 45), in
his Aphorisms, deplores the corruption of Philoso-
phy by the mixing up with it of superstition and
theology, saying that it is most injurious both as a
whole and in parts, and continues : —

" Against it we must use the greatest caution. . . . Yet some
of the moderns have indulged this folly with such consummate
inconsiderateness that they have endeavoured to build a system of
Natural Philosophy on the First Chapter of Genesis, the Book of
Job, and other parts of Scripture ; seeking thus the dead amongst
the living" (the interests of the soul). "And this folly is the
more to be prevented and restrained, because not only fantastical
philosophy but heretical religion spring from the absurd mixture
of matters Divine and human. It is therefore most wise soberly
to render unto faith the things that belong to faith." In the Intro-
duction of The G?'eat Instaiwatioji, he says : " For man, being
a member and interpreter of Nature, acts and understands so far
as he has observed of the order, the works, and the mind of
Nature, and can proceed no further, for no power is able to loose
or break the chain of causes, nor is Nature to be conquered but
by submission."

A hard preliminary battle had to be fought by
the philosophers for natural causation as against
supernatural interference in the governing of the
living world. Here lies the main debt of natural
science to Philosophy ; and to omit mention of the
great names of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies would leave a serious gap in these outlines.
The natural philosophers of this time were more
scientific than the professed scientists. They
reached below metaphysics into questions which

ADVANCE OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 21

to-day are left more exclusively to science. The
order of the Universe and the laws of Nature formed
a large part of speculation from the times of Bacon
to Schelling; in fact, now and again this speculation
sprang directly from observation of Nature, and it
is a most striking fact that every great philosopher
touched upon the Evolution idea. Bruno was a
radical evolutionist, although his notions were more
Oriental than European. Bacon foresaw the close
bearings of Variation and of experimental Evolution
upon species transformation. Descartes cautiously
advocated the Evolution idea. Leibnitz may even
be considered the head of a school of evolutionists.
Kant in his earlier wTitings held advanced views.
Thus the naturalists, whenever they passed from
direct observation to speculation upon the causes of
things, drew their suggestions and inspiration largely
from these philosophers.

This need not lead us into the history of the
discussion of primary causes, nor of the mechanical
and monistic versus the dualistic view of Nature.
The evolution of life as an organic law, more com-
plex but comparable to any inorganic law, such as
gravitation, is one phase of natural causation. For
whatever principle regulates the rapid fall of a
wounded bird to the earth, is the same in kind, so
far as our philosophy of Nature is concerned, as
that which, during millions of years, has slowly
evolved the bird from the earth. Some of the
Greeks early saw this truth; yet in the progress

22 ANT I CI PA TION AND INTERPRETA TION OF NA TURE.

of later thought in Europe, the Hving world was
the last to come under this principle of natural
causation. The battle for it had to be first fought
out in Cosmogony, then in Geology. So keen a
philosopher as Kant believed that he saw two prin-
ciples in Nature ; one of natural causes reigning
in lifeless matter, one of teleological causes reign-
inof in livinor matter. This was because he could
not conceive of any natural principle which could
explain the beautiful adaptations and designs of
Nature. From Geology the spread of the truth of
natural causation reached the origin of the lower
forms of life, and finally the origin of man. It is
therefore a striking case of parallelism that the
advance of our knowledge of development has
repeated the actual cosmic order of development.
Man first perceived Evolution in objects most
remote, gradually in objects nearer to him, finally
in himself.

Advance of Zoology and Botany.

The general state of knowledge of the different
forms of life, next to the suggestiveness of Philoso-
phy, was the most important factor in the environ-
ment of the Evolution idea, as food to the organism.
The comparatively elementary knowledge of Aris-
totle rendered his speculations upon Evolution, at
most, happy guesses at the truth. Embryology,
Paleontology, Comparative Anatomy, and Distribu-
tion, the four pillars of modern Evolution, arose in

ADVANCE OF ZOOLOGY,

23

the eighteenth century, but were not built into
their scientific inductive form until the .nineteenth
century.

Yet the Greek traditions in natural history per-
sisted as the environment of the Evolution idea as
late as the end of the eighteenth century, and, as
we shall see, the idea itself was framed solely upon
Greek speculation. Most prominent among these
Greek guesses at the truth was the doctrine of
Abiogenesis, or geiieratio cEquivoca — the- spontane-
ous origin of life from lifeless matter. This fallacy
exerted a most potent influence in shaping the
crude theories of Evolution which were advanced
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ;
the absurdity of these theories reacting unfavourably
upon the true Evolution idea by throwing it into
discredit.

The accumulation of the natural evidences of
Evolution was the work of centuries. Besides the
advances in Astronomy, Geology, and Physical
Geography, there was the slow upbuilding of the
great branches of Biology. First, correct ideas of
structure or Comparative Morphology of animals
and plants, and connected with this the structure
of extinct forms preserved as fossils ; with this
knowledge came the appreciation of the meaning
of variations and of gradual development in struct-
ure, and the meaning of vestigial or degenerate
structures. Then came the knowledge of function
and the physiology, first of man, then of the lower

24 ANTICIPA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA TURK.

animals ; then the true ideas of individual develop-
ment from the ^^^, or Embryology, connected with
which many fallacies were current. Finally, Natu-
ral Environment began to be studied, or the rela-
tion of animals and plants to each other and to
the surface of the globe, in connection with Dis-
tribution. In short, Evolution needed materials for
induction. Unwilling Nature had to slowly yield
up her secrets, and Evolution could not be con-
ceived in its phyletic sense until all the knowledge
embraced in Phylogeny had been more or less
fully attained.

Let us first look at Structure. Anatomy had
its infancy among the Greeks, and dissection was
rudely practised. Aristotle was descended from a
long race of physicians, yet his treatise on the
structure of man is believed to show that he did
not practise dissection. Scientific anatomy dates
back to Galen, while modern anatomy began with
the school of the University of Padua, where the
human body was first fully dissected. In structure
Aristotle observed the law of Analogy, as, for exam-
ple, in his comparison of the functions of the fore
and hind limbs. But the principle of Homology,
or the fundamental likeness of type structure
between the fore and hind limbs, was first pointed
out by Vicq d'Azyr in 1805. Now Analogy is the
Will-o'-the-wisp of Evolution ; it is always leading
us astray, as it did St. Hilaire in the third period,
for functionally similar forms and forms with an

ADVANCE OF ZOOLOGY.

25

external resemblance are produced over and over
again in Nature, and do not always point to phy-
letic affinity, while Homology is one of our safest
guides. The relations of organs to each other, or
the idea that one structure is sacrificed for the
development of another, now known as the law of
Economy of Growth, was also perceived by Aris-
totle, but was first clearly stated by Goethe in 1807,
and by St. Hilaire in 18 18. Aristotle, following
Democritus, was strongly impressed with the law
of Adaptation, or the w^onderful fitness of certain
structures for certain ends, and Adaptation, with
all its beautiful manifestations in Nature, has always
been the focus of the differences between the
3p€cial Creationists and Evolutionists.

Degeneration, or the gradual decline of structures
in form and usefulness, does not appear to have
been perceived by Aristotle, although in his analy-
sis of " Movement " he employs a very similar idea
in connection with development. We first meet
with Degeneration as part of an explanation of the
origin of species, in the writings of Linnceus and
Buffon in the eighteenth century ; but the idea
itself was much older, because we find it expressed
in a passage of criticism of Sylvius upon Vesa-
lius. Vesalius (15 14-1564) had brought the charge
against Galen (a.d. 131-200) that his work could
not have been founded upon the human body, be-
cause he had described an intermaxillary bone.
This bone, Vesalius observed, is found in the lower

26 ANTICIPA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA TURE.

animals but not in man. Sylvius (i 6 14-1672) de-
fended Galen warmly, and argued that the fact that
man had no intermaxillary bone at present was no
proof that he did not have it in Galen's time. " It
is luxury," he said, " it is sensuality which has
gradually deprived man of this bone." This pas-
sage proves that the idea of degeneration of struct-
ure through disuse, as well as the idea of the
inheritance of the effects of habit, or the ' transmis-
sion of acquired characters,' is a very ancient one.

Development^ or increasing perfection of struct-
ure in course of Evolution, was the central thought
of Aristotle's natural philosophy, but the term it-
self, as applied to the gradual increase in organs
and single structures in the evolutionary sense, was
first clearly used by Lamarck.

Embryological development was rightly conceived
a priori by Aristotle in the form of Epigenesis, for
he regarded the embryo as a mass of particles con-
taining the potential capacity of development into
the form of the adult. The term ' Evolution ' was
first introduced for the opposed embryological
theory that the embryo contained the complete
form in miniature, and that development consisted
merely in the enlargement of this miniature. This
doctrine of ' emboitement ' of Bonnet, defended by
Swammerdam, Haller, Reaumur, and Cuvier, like
the doctrine of Abiogenesis, long stood in the way
of the progress of the Evolution idea; for if it
were true that all beings had been preformed from

ADVANCE OF ZOOLOGY.

27

the beginning, there could naturally be no evolu-
tion of form, nor any necessity for a theory of
Evolution. Long before Aristotle, the principle
of Synge7iesis, or formation of the embryo by the
union of elements from both parents, was rightly
understood by Empedocles. The notion of heredi-
tary tra7ismissio7i of characters was extremely an-
cient, and was naturally founded upon the early
observed likeness of offspring to parents. Aris-
totle also commented upon the principles of the
prepotency of the characteristics of one parent
over the other, as well as of Atavism.

The growth of Embryology as an objective sci-
ence came, of course, with the invention of micro-
scopic lenses. Degraff, in the discovery of the
ovum in 1678, Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) in the
discovery of the spermatozoon, laid the foundations
of the science which Meckel, in 181 3, and Von Baer,
in 1827, built into one of the keystones of Evolu-
tion. Von Baer's law, that higher animals passed
through embryonic stages in which they resemble
the adult forms of lower types, was also dimly per-
ceived by Aristotle, but not, of course, in its vital
relation to Evolution.

Aristotle also distinguished between living and
lifeless matter as the organic and inorganic, but ia
common with all the Greeks, and, in fact, with all
zoologists up to comparatively recent tinges, he
believed in Adiogenesis, or the spontaneous develop-
ment of living from lifeless matter. This belief

2S ANT I CI PA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA PURE.

was handed down through all the Middle Ages, and
appeared in its crudest form as an explanation, not
only of the origin of the lowest forms of life, but
of the higher forms, even as late as the beginning
of this century. As a spurious naturalistic expla-
nation it was one of the greatest impediments to
the growth of the true Evolution idea.

The law of Biogenesis, or of life from life, was
clearly stated in Harvey's famous and oft-quoted
dictum, omne vivum ex ovo, but was not finally de-
monstrated until quite late in the present century.
The belief in spontaneous or direct origin from the
earth thus began amongst the Greeks as an expla-
nation of the origin of man and of the highest
forms of life ; it was gradually contracted to the
origin of the lower and smaller forms of life, and
finally, to the lowest invisible forms of bacteria,
until, as an outcome of the discussions which are
still fresh in our memory, between Pouchet and
Pasteur in France, and Bastian and Tyndall in
England, the theory of spontaneous origin of any
form of life, even the lowest, was completely
abandoned.

n.

AMONG THE GREEKS.

Die Griinder der griechischen Naturphilosophie im siebenten und sechsten
Jahrhundert voi' Christus vvaren es, die zuerst diesen wahren Grundstein der
Erkenntniss legten und einen naturliclien gemeinsamen Urgrund aller Dinge zu
erkennen suchten. — Haeckel.

Never has the influence of Nature upon thought
been more evident than in the philosophy and natu-
ral history of the Greeks. Whatever they may have
drawn from the vague, abstract notions of develop-
ment and transformation of Asiatic philosophers,
they certainly recast into comparatively modern
Evolutionism. No landlocked people could have
put forth the rich suggestions of natural law
which came from the long line of natural philoso-
phers from Thales to Aristotle.

Their earliest known philosophy was a philosophy^
of Nature, of the origin and causes of the Universe.^
As Zeller observes, they aimed directly at a theory
before considering the severe conditions required for
the attainment of scientific knowledge. How, then,
can we explain the nearness of their easy guesses
at the secrets of Nature to the results of modern
labor ? Only through this influence of the ' viilicii'
of their physical surrounding upon their thought.
It is in the environment of the sea we find the
^ inspiration of Greek biological prophecy. Along

29

30 AMONG THE GREEKS.

the shores and In the waters of the blue ^gean,
teeming with what we now know to be the earHest
and simplest forms of animals and plants, they
founded their hypotheses as to the origin and suc-
cession of life. Lucretius the Roman was Greek
in spirit, but dwelling inland he substituted a ter-
restrial theory. Even the early Greek natural phi-
losophy sprang more or less from observation, and
therefore had some concrete value. It was not
wholly imaginative.

The spirit of the Greeks was vigorous and hope-
ful. Not pausing to test their theories by research,
they did not suffer the disappointments and delays
which come from our own efforts to wrest truths
from Nature. Combined with great freedom and
wide range of ideas, independence of thought, and
tendencies to rapid generalization, they had genuine
gifts of scientific deduction, which enabled them to
reach truth, as it were, by inspiration. As a case
in point, Aristotle advanced a true theory of the
nature of embryonic development by a very easy
process, when contrasted with the slow steps which
led to the establishment of the same theory of Epi-
genesis in the eighteenth century.

Their development from a childish to a mature
philosophy was a slow one, and their thought upon
Nature passed through four phases. First, the pre-
historic mythological phase, which left its imprints
in guesses as to the strange origin of monstrous
forms of life, by the first natural philosophers who

SPIRIT OF THE GREEKS. 31

endeavoured to replace mythological by natural
phenomena.

These pioneers contributed the spirit of the
second phase, seen in the naturalism of the pre-
Socratic period, suggesting Evolution, but neither
conceiving of Evolution by slow stages of develop-
ment nor seeking to explain Adaptation or Design
in their systems of natural causation. They could
not, in fact, speculate upon Design, as Zeller very
acutely observes in reply to Lange, until the idea
of Design as the result of a controlling Intelligence
had arisen, and this idea was first developed by
Anaxagoras, the last of the Physicists. He was
followed by Socrates, who enlarged the theistic
principle, which in the natural philosophy of Plato
and in the natural history of Aristotle, inspired
the third or teleological phase of thought. Then
came the fourth phase, which was a naturalistic
reaction to the novel and widely opposed mechani-
cal or materialistic conceptions of the Universe
developed by the Epicureans.

32

AMONG THE GREEKS.

The Greek Periods. {After Zeller^

GENERAL CONCEPTION
OF NATURE.

Mythological.

DIVISIONS OF THE SCHOOLS.

First Period.

Naturalistic.

Earlier Materialistic.

Second Period.

Tehological.

The Prehistoric Traditions.
I. The Three Earliest Schools.

The lonians. Thales (624-548),
Anaximander (611-547), Anax-
imenes (588-524), Diogenes
(440- ).
The Pythagoreans. (580-430.)
The Eleatics. Xenophanes (576-
480), Parmenides (544- ).
II. Physicists.

Herachtus (535-475), Empedocles
(495-435 )> Democritus (450-
), Anaxagoras, (500-428).
Socrates (470-399), Plato ^(427-

347)-
Aristotle (384-322).

The Peripatetics, or post- Aristotelian

school, including Theophrastus,

Preaxagoras, Herophilus, Erasis-

tratus.

Third Period. A. I. The Stoics.

II. The Epicureans. Epicurus (341-

270 B.C.).

III. The Sceptics.

B. I. Eclecticism. Galen (13 1-20 1 a.d.).

In Zeller's volumes on Greek Philosophy, and
in his special discussion of Evolution among the
Greeks, Die Griechischen Vo7^g'dnger Darwin s,
we find a full examination of the speculations of
these ancient philosophers. Lange and Haeckel

Later Materialistic,

THALES AND ANAXIMANDER. 33

tend to read into these speculations opinions which
Zeller, with his more critical and exact analysis,
throws into their actual relative value.

The Ionians and Eleatics.

Thales and Anaximander, the earliest Ionians,
were students of .Astronomy and of the origin of
the Universe. So far as we know, they were the
first who endeavoured to substitute a natural expla
nation of things for the old myths. Thales was
also the first of the long line of natural philosophers)
who looked upon the great expanse of mother ocean
and declared water to be the matter from which all
things arose, and out of which they exist. This
idea of the aquatic or marine origin of life, which
is now a very widely accepted theory, is therefore
an extremely ancient one. As has been said, it
could only have arisen in a country surrounded
by warm marine currents prodigal with shore and
deep sea life.

Anaximander (611-547), the Milesian, is termed
by Haeckel the prophet of Kant and Laplace in
Cosmogony, and of Lamarck and Darwin in Biol-
ogy! His theories were still largely imbued with
mythology, and the more closely we examine them,
the less they seem to resemble modern ideas. If
we reduce this superlative prophetic mantle, we
still find Anaximander imbued with a wealth of
suggestion, and a literal prophet of some of the

34 AMONG THE GREEKS.

eighteenth century, rather than of the nineteenth
century, speculations upon Evolution. He con-;
ceived of the earth as first existing in a fluid^
state. From its gradual drying up all living creat-j
ures were produced, beginning with men. Thesej
aquatic men first appeared in the form of fishes inj
the water, and they emerged from this element
only after they had progressed so far as to be able
to further develop and sustain themselves upon
land. This is rather analogous to the bursting of
a chrysalis, than to progressive development from a
simpler to a more advanced structure by a change
of organs, yet a germ of the Evolution idea is
found here. ^

We find that Anaximander advanced some rea-
sons for this view. He pointed to man's long help-
lessness after birth as one of the proofs that he
cannot be in his original condition. His hypothet-
ical ancestors of man were supposed to be first
encased in horny capsules, floating and feeding in
water ; as soon as these ' fish-men ' were in a con-
dition to emerge, they came on land, the capsule
burst, and they took their human form. Anaxi-
mander, naturally, is not staggered by the differ-
ences of internal organization necessary for aquatic
or terrestrial life, nor are we to translate the word
fxeTa/Biow as ' adaptation ' to new coi^itions of life,
but simply as implying that the original fish-men
persisted through their metamorphoses long enough
to reproduce true men on land. There is, how-

ANAXIMANDER. 3 c

ever, the dim notion here of survival or persistence
throughout decidedly trying circumstances, which
was greatly developed later by Empedocles. In
the fragments of Anaximander's teachings we find
he does not speculate upon the origin of other land
animals, or intimate that he has any notion of the
development of higher from lower organisms, ex-
cept in the case of man. As to the origin of life
in the beginning, he was the first teacher of the
doctrine of Abiogenesis, believing that eels and
other aquatic forms are directly produced from life-
less matter.

Grotesque as these ideas of Anaximander are,
they indicate a marked advance over the autochtho-
nous myths of earlier times, according to which
man grew, like a plant, directly out of the earth ;
for we find here an attempt to explain human
origin upon the basis of natural analogies. Unfor-
tunately, so little knowledge of Anaximander's work
is left us, that we can only obtain these vague
glimpses of his opinions. Anaximenes, his pupil;
(588-524), found in air the cause of all things. Air,!
taking the form of the soul, imparts life, motion,
and thought to animals. He introduced the idea
of primordial terrestrial slime, a mixture of earth
and water, from which, under the influence of the
sun's heat, plants, animals, and human beings were
directly produced — in the abiogenetic fashion.
Diogenes of Apollonia (440- ), a late adherent
of the Ionian school, also derived both plants and

36 AMONG THE GREEKS.

animals from this primordial earth slime. This
is the prototype of Oken's Ur-Schleim. J

Xenophanes (576-480) was the founder of the
Eleatic school, and is believed to have been a pupil
of Anaximander. He agreed with his master so
far as to trace the origin of man back to the transi-
tion period between the fluid or water and solid or
land stages of the development of the earth, but we
do not know how far he elaborated his ideas. The
ultimate origin of life he traced to spontaneous
generation, believing that the sun in warming the
earth produces both animals and plants. He is
famous in the annals of science as being the first!
to recognize fossils as remains of animals formerly
alive, and to see in them the proofs that the seas
formerly covered the earth, and that water was the,
element from which the earth emerged. Parmen-
IDES, his pupil, developed his cosmogony, and also
derived men from the primitive earth slime directly
engendered by the sun's heat.

The Physicists.

The Physicists, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democ-j
ritus, and Anaxagoras, were far bolder and more
fruitful in their suggestions. Among them w^e find
that the vague notions of metamorphosis and the
notions of Abioscenesis derived from the lonians
were developed into surprising anticipations of the
true Evolution idea. *^

EMPEDOCLES. 37

Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475) g^^^ve the
impetus to this advance. He was so profoundly
impressed with the ceaseless revolutions in the
Universe that he saw in movement the universal
law. Everything was perpetually transposed into
new shapes. It must not be supposed for a
moment that Heraclitus had even a remote notion
of the transformation process of life. He was
rather a metaphysician than a natural philosopher ;
and his principal contribution to the Evolution idea
was manifestly in his broad view of Nature, as
involved in perpetual changes, yet always consti-
tuting a uniform whole. >

Empedocles of Agrigentum (495-435) took a
great stride beyond his predecessors, and .may
justly be called the father of the Evolution idea.
He was not only a poet and musician, but made
the first observations in Embryology which are
recorded. Among his first physical principles we
find the four elements — fire, air, water, and eartji
— played upon by two ultimate forces, a combining
force, or love, and a separating force, or hate. He
believed in Abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation,
as the explanation of the origin of life, but that
Nature does not produce the lower and higher
forms simultaneously or without an effort. Plant
life came first, and animal life developed only after
a lono; series of trials. After the first formation of
the earth, and before it was surrounded by the sun,
plants arose, and from their budding forth came

38 AMONG THE GREEKS.

animals. But this origin he beHeved to be a very
gradual process, for even now the living world pre-
sents a series of incomplete products. All organ-
isms arose through the fortuitous play of the two
great forces of Nature upon the four elements.
Thus animals first appeared, not as complete indi-
viduals, but as parts of individuals, — heads without
necks, arms without shoulders, eyes without their
sockets. As a result of the triumph of love over
hate, these parts began to seek each other and
unite, but purely fortuitously. Thus out of this
confused play of bodies, all kinds of accidental and
extraordinary beings arose, — animals with the heads
of men, and men with the heads of animals, even
with double chests and heads like those of the
guests in the Feast of Aristophanes. But these
unnatural products soon became extinct, because
they were not capable of propagation. Here it
would appear that Empedocles was mainly endeav-
ouring to give a naturalistic theory for the origin
of the Centaurs, Chimaeras, and other creations of
Greek mythology. Thus, at least, Lucretius inter-
preted Empedocles many centuries later, putting
these conjectures into verse (Book V. 860): —

y " Hence, doubtless, Earth prodigious forms at first
Gendered, of face and members most grotesque :
-^ Monsters half-man, half-woman, not from each

Distant, yet neither total ; shapes unsound,
~ Footless and handless, void of mouth or eye,
^ Or from misj unction, maimed, of limb with limb :

EMPEDOCLES. jg

— To act all impotent, or flee from harm,

Or nurture ^ take, their loathsome days t'extend.

These sprang at first and things alike uncouth •
Yet vainly ; for abhorrent Nature quick
Checked their vile growths ; . . .

Hence, doubtless, many a tribe has sunk supprest,
Powerless its kind to gender.- For whate'er
Feeds on the living ether, craft or speed,
Or courage stern, from age to age preserves
In ranks uninjured : . . .

Yet Centaurs lived not ; nor could shapes like these
Live ever, from two different natures reared.
Discordant limbs and powers by powers reversed."

Empedocles imagined that after these unnatural
products became extinct, other forms arose which
were able to support themselves and multiply ; but
even these were not formed at once. First came
shapeless masses built of earth and water, or earth
slime, without limbs, organs of reproduction, or
speech, thrown from fires beneath the earth. Later
came the separation of the two sexes and the exist-
ing mode of reproduction. These trials of Nature
were not a succession of organisms, improving as
time went on, but a series of direct births from
Nature, which were unfit to live, and hence elimi-
nated, until, after ceaseless trials, Nature produced
the fit and perpetual tribes.

Thus, in the ancient teachings of Empedocles,
we find the germ of the theory of the Siirvival

1-2 It is interesting to note the remote parallel with the modern notion
of the * struggle for existence ' as, mainly, success in feeding and in leaving
progeny.

40 AMONG THE GREEKS.

I

of the Fittest, or of Natural Selection. And the
absolute proof that Empedocles' crude hypothesis ^
embodied this world famous thought, is found in
passages in Aristotle's Physics, in which he refers
to Empedocles as having first shown the possibility
of the origin of the fittest forms of life through
chance rather than through Design. With Empe-
docles himself, however, it was no more than the
potential germ of suggestion, which, in the brilliant
mind of Aristotle, was stated precisely in its modern
form, as we shall see later in our study of Aristotle.

Lange attributes to Democritus a similar inter-
pretation of Empedocles' teaching, namely, the
" attainment of adaptations through the infinitely
repeated play of production and annihilation, in
which finally that alone survives which bears the
guarantee of persistence through its relatively
fortuitous constitution." But Zeller takes a more
conservative and sounder view of the real meaning
of this old philosopher of Agrigentum. He says
this could not have been advanced by Empedocles
as an explanation of Design in Nature, because
this idea had not yet been formulated in the
Greek mind.

Empedocles was an evolutionist only in so far
as he taught the gradual substitution of the less by
the more perfect forms of life. He had a dim
adumbration of the truth. There is no glimmer-
ing of slow development through the successive
modification of lower into higher forms. His

DEMOCRITUS. ^j

beings, which were incapable of feeding, reproduc-
ing, or defending themselves, were all produced
spontaneously, or directly from the earth. He thus
simply modified the abiogenetic hypothesis, and, by
happy conjecture, gave his theory a semblance of
modern Evolution, with four sparks of trutli, —
first, that the development of life was a gradual
process; second, that plants were evolved before
animals ; third, that imperfect forms were gradually
replaced (not succeeded) by perfect forms; fourth, i
that the natural cause of the production of perfect
forms was the extinction of the imperfect.

Democritus (450- B.C.), the founder of the
Atomistic philosophy, and precursor of materialism,
studied and compared the principal organs of man
and the lower animals. Cuvier has called him the
first comparative anatomist. He did not, as Zeller
points out, further the Evolution idea, because his
teaching was not constructive in the way of advanc-
ing explanations of natural phenomena ; it was sim-
ply destructive as regards Teleology. He perceived
Design and admired the adaptations of Nature, but
left their origin unexplained. As Zeller observes,
Democritus had a gift for observing the purposeful
direction and the functions of bodily organs, and
was in every way inclined, one would think, to
explain these adaptations upon the principles of his
mechanical philosophy, for he stood far from a tcle-
ological conception of Nature, yet he advanced no
explanations. He denied that the Universe was

42 AMONG THE GREEKS.

created or ordered by reason. He adopted the
older views as to the origin of animals and plants
directly from the terrestrial slime. His main indi-
rect contribution to the sub-structure of Evolution
was his perception of the principle of the adaptation
of single structures and organs to certain purposes,
— an important step in advance, for Empedocles'
notion of adaptation extended only to organisms as
a whole.

Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.) took a further step.
According to Plato and Aristotle, this philosopher
was the first to attribute adaptations in Nature to
Intelligent Design, and was thus the founder of
Teleology. He also was the first to trace the
origin of animals and plants to pre-existing germs
in the air and ether. That the idea of Design was
only developed in his mind to a very limited extent
is shown in his history of the Universe. All things
existed, in some form, from the beginning. There
were the germs, seeds, or miniatures of plants, ani-
mals, and minerals intermingled in the mass of
matter. These germs had to be separated from the
mass and arranged under the direction of Mind or
Reason. The original chaos was heated ; it divided
into cold mist and warm ether. Water, earth, and
minerals were formed from the former. The germs
of plants were floating in the air; then they were
carried down by the rains, and produced vegetation.
The germs of animals, including those of man, were
in the ether ; they were fructified by the warm and

ARISTOTLE. ^^

moist terrestrial slime. In recrard to Anaxao-oras'
conception of adaptations as due to intelli^'-ent
design in Nature, Zeller says : —

*' The question whether the purposefulness of the tendencies of
Nature (Natureinrichtung) could be explained without a purpose-
ful working natural force — this question could not be raised until
men had observed adaptation in Nature and had begun to attribute
it to Intelligent Design. No one, according to Aristode and
Plato, had taken this step before Anaxagoras, But even he ap-
plied this newly discovered principle in exceptional cases, — not
to the origin of life, surely, for he derived plants and animals from
the air and ether. He did not, therefore, further the explanation
of the problem of design in Nature, which Empedocles is mis-
takenly supposed to have raided."

Aristotle.

Give me no peeping scientist, if I
Shall judge God's grandly-ordered world aright ;
But give, to plant my Cosmic survey high,
The wisest of wise Greeks, the Stagirite,

— John Stuart Blackie.

With Aristotle (384-322) we enter a new world.
He towered above his predecessors, and by the
force of his own genius created Natural History.
In his own words, lately quoted by Romanes, we
learn that the centuries preceding him yielded him
nothing but vague speculation : —

" I found no basis prepared ; no models to copy. . . . Mine
is the first step, and therefore a small one, though worked out with
much thought and hard labor. It must be looked at as a first
step and judged with indulgence. You, my readers, or hearers
of my lectures, if you think I have done as much as can fairly be

44 AMONG THE GREEKS.

required for an initiatory start, as compared with more advanced
departments of theory, will acknowledge what I have achieved
and pardon what I have left for others to accomplish."

In the Physics and in the Natural History of
Animals, are contained Aristotle's views of Nature
and his remarkable observations upon the plant
and animal kingdoms. He was thoroughly versed
in old Greek philosophy, and begins many of his
treatises with a history of opinion, after the modern
German fashion. He frequently quotes and dis-
cusses the opinions of Empedocles, Parmenides,
Democritus, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and others.
He undoubtedly inherited his taste for science from
the line of physicians upon his father's side, perhaps
from the Asclepiads, who are said to have practised
dissection. He was attracted to natural history by
his boyhood life upon the seashore, and the main
parts of his ideas upon Evolution were evidently
drawn from his own observations upon the grada-
tions between marine plants and the lower and
higher forms of marine animals. He was the first
to conceive of a genetic series, and his conception
of a single chain of evolution from the polyps to
man was never fully replaced until the beginning
of this century. It appeared over and over again
in different guises. In all his philosophy of Nature,
Aristotle was guided partly by his preconceived
opinions derived from Plato and Socrates, and
partly by convictions derived from his own obser-
vations upon the wonderful order and perfection

ARISTOTLE.

45

of the Universe. His ' perfecting^ principle ' in
Nature is only one of a score of his legacies to
later speculation upon Evolution causation. Many
of our later writers are Aristotelians without apjxar-
ently being conscious of it.

Let us first look at Aristotle's equipment as a
naturalist. He enters a plea for the study and dis-
section of lower types : " Hence we ought not with
puerile fastidiousness to neglect the contemplation
of more ignoble animals ; for in all animals there
is something to admire because in all there is
the natural and the beautiful." He distino^uished
five hundred species of mammals, birds, and fishes,
besides exhibiting an extensive knowledge of polyps,
sponges, cuttlefish, and other marine forms of life.
His four essays upon the parts, locomotion, genera-
tion, and vital principle of animals, show that he
fully understood Adaptation in its modern sense ;
he recognized the analogies if not the homologies
between different organs like the limbs ; he dis-
tinguished between the homogeneous tissues made
up of like parts and the heterogeneous organs
made up of unlike parts; he perceived the under-
lying principle of physiological division of labour in
the different organs of the body ; he perceived the
unity of plan or type in certain classes of animals,
and considered rudimentary organs as tokens
whereby Nature sustains this unity; he rightly con-
ceived of life as the function of the organism, not as a
separate principle ; he anticipated Harvey's doctrine

46 AMONG THE GREEKS.

of Epigenesis in embryonic development ; he fully
perceived the forces of hereditary transmission,
of the prepotency of one parent or stock, and of
Atavism or Reversion ; he also perceived the ' com-
pensation of growth ' principle as shown in a pas-
sage of his upon the origin of horns : " Having
now explained the purpose of horns, it remains
to see the necessity of matter, by which Nature
gave horns to animals ; we see that Nature taking
away matter from the front teeth (alluding to the
ruminants) has added it to the horns." He saw
•the fundamental difference between animals and
plants, and distinguished the organic or living
world from the inorganic or lifeless world.

In his treatise upon the Generation of Animals
(I. Sec. 35) we find him discussing the Heredity
theories of Hippocrates and Heraclitus, which were
similar to those of Democritus, and to the later
Pangenesis of Darwin. He says : —

" Children resemble their parents not only in congenital char-
acters, but in those acquired later in life. For cases are known
where parents have been marked by scars, and children have
shown traces of these scars at the same points ; a case is also
reported from Chalcedon in which a father had been branded with
a letter, and the same letter somewhat blurred and not sharply
defined appeared upon the arm of his child."

Aristotle, however, does not accept the Pan-
genesis hypothesis of Heredity, nor does he suggest
the inheritance of normal functional modifications.
In his History of Animals he again refers to the

ARISTOTLE.

47

inheritance of mutilations, remarking that such in-
heritance, although observed, is decidedly rare.^

We can pass leniently by errors which are strewn
among such grand contributions to Biology and to
the very foundation-stones of the Evolution idea.
Aristotle showed practical ignorance of human
anatomy and physiology; he failed to establish a
natural classification ; he also fostered the abio-
genetic myth, that not only smaller but larger
animals, such as frogs, snakes, and eels, are pro-
duced spontaneously from the mud. Some of these
and many other of his mistaken teachings were not
wholly outlived until the present century ; yet we
may not allow them to detract from our general
admiration of his great genius. His failures in
descriptive science were chiefly in statements where
he departed from his own principle of verification,
and relied upon the scientific hearsay of his day.

Aristotle's method has been fully discussed in
Lewes' very interesting work, Aristotle ; a Chap-
ter in the History of Science. While Plato had
relied upon intuitions as the main ground of true
knowledge, Aristotle relied upon experiment and
induction. " We must not," he said, " accept a
general principle from logic only, but must prove
its application to each fact ; for it is in facts that we
must seek general principles, and these must always
accord with facts. Experience furnishes the partic-

1 See Brock, " Einige altere Autoren uber die Vererbung erworbcncr
Eigenschaften." Biolog, Centralbl. VIII. p. 491-

L

48 AMONG THE GREEKS.

ular facts from which induction is the pathway to
general laws" {History of Animals, I. 6). He held
that errors do not arise because the senses are false
media, but because we put false interpretations
upon their testimony.

Aristotle's theories as to the origin and succes-
sion of life went far beyond what he could have
reached by the legitimate application of his pro-
fessed method of procedure. Having now briefly
considered the materials of his knowledge, let us
carefully examine how he put his facts together
into an Evolution system which had the teachings
of Plato and Socrates for its primary philosophical
basis.

Aristotle believed in a complete gradation in
Nature, a progressive development corresponding
with the progressive life of the soul. Nature, he
says, proceeds constantly by the aid of gradual
transitions from the most imperfect to the most
perfect, while the numerous analogies which we
find in the various parts of the animal scale show
that all is governed by the same laws, — in other
words. Nature is a unit as to its causation. The
lowest stage is the inorganic, and this passes into
the organic by direct metamorphosis, matter being
transformed into life. Plants are animate as com-
pared with minerals, and inanimate as compared
with animals ; they have powers of nourishment
and reproduction, but no feeling or sensibility.
Then come the plant-animals, or Zoophytes ; these

ARISTOTLE. ^g

are the marine creatures, such as sponges and sea-
anemones, which leave the observer most in doubt,
for they grow upon rocks and die if detached.
(Polyps Aristotle wrongly thought were plants,
while sponges he rightly considered animals.) The
third step taken by Nature is the development of
animals with sensibility, — hence desire for food
and other needs of life, and hence locomotion to
fulfil these desires. Here was a more complex and
energetic form of the original life. Man is the
highest point of one long and continuous ascent ;
other animals have the faculty of thought; man
alone generalizes and forms abstractions ; he is
physically superior in his erect position, in his
purest and largest blood supply, largest brain, and
highest temperature.

How was this progression effected ?

Here w^e come to the second feature in Aris-
totle's theory, which is more or less metaphys-
ical,— it is the idea of the development of the
potentiality of perfection into actuality, tlie creation
of form in matter. " Nature does nothing without
an aim." " She is always striving after the most
beautiful that is possible.' Aristotle perceived a
most marvellous adaptation in the arrangement of
the world, and felt compelled to assume Intelligent
Design as the primary cause of things, by the per-
fection and regularity which he observed in Na-
ture. Nothing, he held, which occurs regularly
can be the result of accident. This perfection is

£

50 AMONG THE GREEKS.

the outcome of an all-pervading movement^ which we
should, in nineteenth-century language, speak of
as an 'internal perfecting tendency.' In Aristotle's
conception of ' movement,' as outlined in his Phys-
ics, we find something very analogous to our
modern biological conception of transformation in
development, for he analyzes ' movement ' as every
change, as every realization of what is possible,
consisting in : {a) Substantial movement, origin
and decay, as we should now say, development and
degeneration ; (b) Quantitative movement, addition
and subtraction, or, in modern terms, the gain and
loss of parts ; [c) Qualitative movement, or the
transition of one material into another, in meta-
morphosis and change of function ; {d) Local move-
ment, or change of place, in the transposition
of parts.

Thus Aristotle thought out the four essential
features of Evolution as a process ; but we have
found no evidence that he actually applied this
conception to the development of organisms or of
organs, as we do now in the light of our modern
knowledge of the actual stages of Evolution. This
enables us to understand Aristotle's view of Nature
as the principle of motion and rest comprised in
his four Causes. Here again he is more or less
metaphysical. The first is the 'physical Material
cause,' or matter itself ; the second is the ' physical
Formal cause,' or the forces of the ' perfecting prin-
ciple'; the third is the 'abstract Final cause,' the

ARISTOTLE.

51

fitness, adaptation, or purpose, the good of each and
all; the fourth, presiding over all, is the 'Efficient
cause,' the Prime Mover, or God., Aristotle attrib-
uted all the imperfections of Nature to the stru<'-<de
between the material and formal causes, — to the
resistance of matter to form. There is room for
difference of opinion as to whether he considered
the Efificient cause, or God, as constantly present
and working in Nature, or as having established a
preordained harmony. Romanes points out that
Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, asks the question
whether the principle of order and excellence is self-
existing from the beginning (i.e. the operation of
natural laws), or whether, like the discipline of an
army, it is apparently inherent, but really due to a
general in the background.

Whether or not Aristotle viewed the Prime Mover
as sustaining his laws or as having preordained them,
he certainly does not believe in Special Creation,
either of adaptations or of organisms, nor in the
interference of the Prime Mover in Nature ; the
struggle towards perfection is a natural process,
as where he says : " It is due to the resistance of
matter to form that Nature can only rise by de-
grees from lower to higher types." There is, there-
fore, no doubt that he was not a teleologist in the
ordinary sense; at the very heart of his theory of
Evolution was this 'internal perfecting tendency,'
driving organisms progressively forward into more
perfect types. He viewed man as the flower of

52 AMONG THE GREEKS.

Nature, towards which all had been tending, the
crowning end, purpose, or final cause. His theory
was then anthropocentric : " plants are evidently
for the sake of animals and animals for the sake
of man ; thus Nature, which does nothing in vain,
has done all things for the sake of man." ^

Aristotle's view is brought out clearly and emphat-
ically in the most striking passage of all his writings
where he undertakes to refute Empedocles. This
is of the greatest interest to-day, because Aristotle
clearly states and rejects a theory of the origin or
adaptive structures in animals altogether similar to
that of Darwin. Aristotle perceived in Emped-
ocles' crude suggestion of the survival of adapted
and extinction of inadapted beings, the gist of an
argument which might be applied not only to entire
organisms but to parts of organisms, to explain pur-
posive structures, and which might thus become a
dangerous rival to his own theory of the origin of
purposive structures by the direct operation of his
'perfecting principle.' In the following passages,
selected from the early books of his Physics, we
seem to gain a clear insight into Aristotle's whole
chain of reasoning, in a manner which enables us
to compare it with modern lines of thought. The
headings and parentheses are my own ; the pas-
sages are selected and adapted from Taylor's trans-
lation of the Physics and brought together to give
a clear idea of Aristotle's meaning in his own
language.

ARISTOTLE. -^

a. Nature is twofold, namely. Form and Matter.

For if we look to the ancient philosophers, such
as Empedocles and Democritus, it would seem that
matter alone should be regarded, for they attended
in a very small degree to form . . . but
it is the province of physical science to have a
knowledge of both. Further, it belongs to physical
science to consider the purpose or end for which a
thing subsists. The poet was led to say : —

" An end it has, for which it was produced."

This is absurd, for not that which is last deserves
the name of end, but that which is most perfect.

b. Of Fortuity in Nature,

Empedocles^ says that the greater part of the
members of animals were generated by chance ;
while there are others who assign chance as the cause
of the heavenly bodies, and Intellect (or Design) as
the cause of all earthly bodies. But it is more
probable that the heavens should have been produced
by Nature, Intellect (Design), or something else of
this kind, and that they should exist through such
a designing cause than that frail and mortal animals
were produced by it; for order and a firm and ccr-

^ Empedocles does not speak rightly when he says that many things arc
inherent in animals because it thus happened in their generation ; as for instance
a spine composed of many vertebra not produced for some purpose, but from
chance or accident. {Paris of Animals, Book I.)

54 AMONG THE GREEKS.

tain constitution or being are far more obvious in
celestial natures than in us ; but an uncertain, in-
constant, and fortuitous condition is rather the prop-
erty of the mortal race. . . . Chance and
fortune are sequels (secondary) to both Intellect and
Nature. Hence if chance were in an eminent deo^ree
the cause of the heavens, it would nevertheless be
necessary that Intellect and Nature should be prior
causes of many other things as well as of this Uni-
verse itself.

c. Of Necessity {Law) and Design in Nature.

We must show first, why Nature is a cause which
subsists for some purpose, and second, how necessity
(Natural law) subsists in physical concerns, for all
natural causes are referred to this. But some may
question what hinders Nature from operating for
some purpose rather than from necessity ; for exam-
ple, that rain falls for the benefit of the corn rather
than because that ascending vapour must be cooled
and cooling it must descend as water. But Jupiter
rains not that corn may be increased, but from
necessity. Similarly, if some one's corn is destroyed
by rain, it does not rain for this purpose, but as an
accidental circumstance. It does not appear to be
from fortune or chance that it frequently rains in
winter, but from necessity (law).

ARISTOTLE.

55

d. Adaptive Structures 7tot Produced by Survivals

of the Fittest.

What, then, hinders but that the parts in Nature
may also thus arise (namely, according to law).
For instance, that the teeth should arise from
necessity, the front teeth sharp and adapted to
divide the food, the grinders broad and adapted to
breaking the food into pieces.

(Another explanation may be offered.) Yet, it
may be said that they were not made for this pur-
pose {i.e, for this adaptation), but that this (adapta-
tive) purposive arrangement came about by chance;
and the same reasoning is applied to other parts of
the body in which existence for some purpose is
apparent. And it is argtied that where all tilings
happened as if they were made for some purpose,
being aptly (adaptively) ti7iited by chance, these were
preserved, but such as were not aptly (adaptive I)')
made, these were lost a7id still perish, according to
what Empedocles says concerning the bull species
with human heads. This, therefore, and similar
reasoning, may lead some to doubt on this
subject.

It' is, ho.wever, impossible that these (adaptive)
parts should subsist (arise) in this manner; for these
parts, and everything which is produced in Nature,
are either always, or, for the most part, thus (/>.
adaptively) produced; and this is not the case
with anything which is produced by fortune or

56 AMONG THE GREEKS.

chance,^ even as It does not appear to be fortune or
chance that it frequently rains in winter. ... If these
things appear to be either by chance, or to be for
some purpose, — and we have shown that they can-
not be by chance, — then it follows that they must
be for some purpose. There is, therefore, a pur-
pose in things which are produced by, and exist
from. Nature.

e. A Sequence of Purposive ProdMctioiis.

Since, also, Nature is twofold, consisting of mat-
ter and of form, the latter being an end for the sake
of which the rest subsists, form will also be a cause
for the sake of which natural productions subsist.
. . . Further still, it is necessary (i.e. according to
law) that germs should have been first produced, and
not immediately aimnals ; and that soft mass which
first subsisted was the germ. In plants, also, there
is purpose, but it is less distinct ; and this shows
that plants were produced in the same manner as
animals, not by chance, as by the union of olives
upon grape vines. Similarly, it may be argued,
that there should be an accidental generation (or
production) of the germs of things, but he who
asserts this subverts Nature herself, for N?iture
produces those things which, being continually
moved by a certaiii principle contained in them.-
selves, arrive at a certain end.

1 Compare Darwin : " I have spoken of variations sometimes as if they
were due to chance. This is a wholly incorrect expression; it merely serves
to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation."

POST-ARISrOTELIANS. 57

These passages seem to contain absolute evi-
dence that Aristotle had substantially the modern
conception of the Evolution of life, from a i)rimor-
dial, soft mass of living matter to the most perfect
forms, and that even in these he believed Evolu-
tion was incomplete for they were progressing to
higher forms. His argument of the analogy be-
tween the operation of natural law, rather than of
chance, in the lifeless and in the livinor world, is a
perfectly logical one, and his consequent rejection
of the hypothesis of the Survival of the Fittest, a
sound induction from his own limited knowledge
of Nature. It seems perfectly clear th^t he placed
all under secondary natural laws. If he had ac-
cepted Empedocles' hypothesis, he would have
been the literal prophet of Darwinism. J

The Post-Aristotelians.

Thus, in this great natural philosopher, we reach
the highest level attained by the Greeks, and we
now pass to a rapid decline in Greek productive-
ness until its final extinction. We notice a marked
chasm between his theistic, or dualistic, teaching
and the sceptical, or rather agnostic, and, to a cer-
tain extent, monistic, teaching of Epicurus. This
gap widened. The materialistic and agnostic ten-
dency of Empedocles, Democritus, and Epicurus
was revived by Lucretius, and culminated in him
for the time. The theistic tendency of Aristotle

58 AMONG THE GREEKS.

led to his adoption by, and great influence with,
the philosophers of the early Christian Church.
In general, the movement of free physical inquiry
among the Greeks was checked by the conquest
of Alexander and the loss of national independ-
ence. The interest in investigation into Nature,
and speculation upon the causes of things, sub-
sided. Ethics rose among the Stoics. The Epi-
cureans developed a mechanical and anti-teleologi-
cal conception of the Universe, but they did not
advance the inquiry into natural causation.

Aristotle's scientific teachings were continued by
his pupils among the Peripatetics, Theophrastus
and Preaxagoras, and their successors, Herophilus
and Erasistratus. Unfortunately, the greater part
of the works of Theophrastus, who was both bota-
nist and mineralogist, are lost; his History of
Plants was an attempt to supplement the History
of Animals of his master. The last two members
of this school were physicians, who continued their
studies in Alexandria and became the most dis-
tinguished human anatomists of the time before
Galen.

Pliny (a.d. 23-79), the Roman, the next natural-
ist of note, was rather a collector of anecdotes than
an observer. The last of the Greek naturalists
were Dioscoridus, a physician, observer, and bota-
nist living in the time of the Caesars, and the cele-
brated Galen, physician and anatomist, living under
Marcus Aurelius. Galen (131-200) has been com-

EPICURUS. CQ

pared both with Hippocrates (b.c. 460-377) and
with Aristotle, whose method of observation he
followed and applied to human anatomy. This
was the waning of the scientific movement under
Grecian influence.

Let us now return to the successors of Democri-
tus. The only writer of the Third or Post-Aris-
totelian Period of Greek Philosophy who concerns
us here is Epicurus.

, Epicurus' (341-270) chief interest in philosophy
was to establish the principle of natural versus that
of supernatural causation. He originated nothing
in Evolution, but gathered from Empedocles and
Democritus arguments in support of the principle
of natural law. Zeller observes as his characteristic
that he was totally lacking in the scientific spirit
which could qualify him as an investigator. His
main animus was to combat the supernatural from
every side, yet he was unable to direct his followers
to any naturalistic explanation of value, giving them
rather free rein in the choice of the most ground-
less hypotheses. As for the general conception
that the purposeful could arise by selection or sur-
vival from the unpurposeful, which is credited to
Epicureanism by some modern writers, this con-
ception belongs primarily to Aristotle, who, as we
have seen, formulated the crude myth of Empedo-
cles into the lans^uao^e of modern science, with the
motive of clearly stating a possible explanation of
the origin of the purposeful in order to clearly

6o AMONG THE GREEKS.

refute it. Epicurus was influenced by Democritus
and his doctrine of Atomism, excluding Teleology
at every present point as well as at the beginning
of the world, supporting the mechanical conception
of Nature, and maintaining that every individual
thing is to be explained in a purely mechanicaL
manner. Convinced that only natural causes pre-
vail, Epicurus did not concern himself with in-
quiries as to their character. He also taught]
the origin of life by spontaneous generation, that'
living beings arose directly from the earth, including
many marvellous forms, and adopted Empedocles'
notion, that only those capable of life and reproduc-
tion have been preserved. -^

From Epicurus we take a long leap in time to
T. Lucretius Carus, the Roman poet, whose inquiry
into the origin and nature of living things, as we
have observed, revived the teachings of Emped-
ocles, of Democritus, and especially of Epicurus.
He connected with these many observations of his
own. The fact that he was an original observer of
Nature must be inferred from his considerable
knowledge of animals and plants. It is possible
that the observations treated in his great poem may
have been more precisely recorded in some of his
lost books.

Lucretius (99-55) was the second poet of Evo^
lution. His De Reru7n Nattira resuscitated the
doctrines of Epicurus, and set them in a far more
favourable light, building up anew the mechanical

LUCRETIUS. 6 1

conception of Nature. Lucretius was also familiar
with Empedocles, and, as we have seen, puts his
teachings in verse. Here, again, is a difference of
opinion between Lange and Zeller. Lange refers
to the end of the first book, in which he claims that
Lucretius briefly announces the magnificent doc-
trine first proposed by Empedocles, that all the
adaptations to be found in the Universe, and espe-
cially in organic life, are merely special cases of the
infinite possibilities of mechanical events. Thus
Lucretius says : —

" For verily not by design do the first beginnings of things
station themselves each in his right place, occupied by keen-
sighted intelligence, . . . but because after trying motions and
unions of every kind, at length they fall into arrangements, such
as those out of which this our sum of things has been formed, . . .
and the earth, fostered by the heat of the sun, begins to renew
this produce, and the race of Hving things to come up and
flourish."

Zeller rightly contends that Lucretius did not
really apply the Empedocles theory to the origin
of adaptations as in the modern Darwinian sense;
for his treatment is simply a poetical restatement of
Empedocles' own words, unmodified by the great
advances of science. The creations which, accord-
ing to Lucretius, were thus eliminated from the
earth were the mythical monsters, such as the
Centaurs and the Chimceras.

Lucretius places the mechanical conception of
Nature over aeainst the teleological ; we find that

62 AMONG THE GREEKS.

he does not carry his conception of Nature as
Aristotle does into the law of gradual development
of organic life, but like Parmenides, Democritus,
and Anaxagoras, he conceives of animals as arising
directly from the earth : " Plants and trees," he says^
(Book V. 780), "arise directly out of the earth in
the same manner that feathers and hair grow from
the bodies of animals. Living beings certainly have
not fallen down from heaven, nor, as Anaxagoras
supposed, have land animals arisen from the sea.
But as even now many animals under the influence
of rain, and the heat of the sun, arise from the
earth, so under the fresh, youthful, productive
forces of the younger earth, they were spontane-
ously produced in larger numbers. In this manner
were first produced birds, from the warmth of
spring ; then other animals sprang from the womb
of the earth, since first mounds grew up from
which people sprang forth, for they had been
nourished within. In an analogous manner these
young earth-children were nourished by springs
of milk."

Only as an after-thought, not as a part of Nature's
method, Lucretius borrows from Epicurus, and thus
probably Indirectly from Empedocles, the Survival
of the Fittest idea that some of these earth-born
beings were unable to live, and were replaced by
others. As a rationalist, he naturally suppressed
the mythological Centaur and Chimaera from his
direct history of Creation. In the following pas-

LUCRETIUS. 5^

sages we find these purely fanciful speculations of
Lucretius beautifully expressed : —

" And first the race she reared of verdant herbs
GHstening o'er every hill ; the fields at large
. Shone with the verdant tincture, and the trees
Felt the deep impulse, and with outstretched arms
Broke from their bonds rejoicing. As the down
Shoots from the winged nations, or from beasts
Bristles or hair, so poured the new-born earth
Plants, fruits, and herbage. Then, in order next,
Raised she the sentient tribes, in various modes.
By various powers distinguished : for nor heaven
Down dropped them, nor from ocean's briny waves
Sprang they, terrestrial sole ; whence, justly. Earth
Claims the dear name of mother, since alone
Flowed from herself whate'er the sight surveys.

E'en now oft rears she many a sentient tribe.
By showers and sunshine ushered into day.
Whence less stupendous tribes should then have risen
More, and of ampler make, herself new-formed.
In flower of youth, and Ether all mature.

Of these birds first, of wing and plume diverse,
Broke their light shells in springtime : as in spring
Still breaks the grasshopper his curious web.
And seeks, spontaneous, foods and vital air.

Hence the dear name of mother, o'er and o'er,
Earth claims most justly, since the race of man
Long bore she of herself, each brutal tribe
Wild-wandering o'er the mountains, and the birds
Gay-winged, that cleave, diverse, the liquid air."

It thus appears that we cannot truly speak of
Lucretius as an evolutionist, in the sense of grad-
ual development by descent, although he believed

64 AMONG THE GREEKS.

in the successive appearance of different forms of
life. His nearest approach to true Evolution teach-
ing was in his account of the development of the
faculties and arts among the races of men. In
shutting out Aristotle and his view of Nature, he
excluded the only Greek who came near the mod-
ern idea of descent of higher forms from lower.
The animals and plants of Lucretius arise full-
formed direct from the earth. This is not Evolu-
^tion, yet it plays an important part in the later
history of the idea. Views not unlike these were
revived as late as the eighteenth century.

Although a Roman, Lucretius was virtually a
Greek in his natural philosophy. He terminated
a period of thought, and in his poem summed up
all the non-Aristotelian teachings in a pure form.
After him the Greek ideas were grafted upon
Arabic and Christian philosophy and science.
This is, therefore, the point at which to consider
what were the Greek legacies to their followers.

„ The Legacy of the Greeks.

The first element in the legacy of the Greeks
was their scientific curiosity, their desire to find a
natural explanation for the origin and existence of
things. This is by no means a universal character-
istic of the human mind, for we know that many
Eastern races are wholly devoid of it, and have
made no scientific progress. The ground motive

LEGACY OF THE GREEKS. 6$

in science is a high order of curiosity, led on by
ambition to overcome obstacles.

The first biological question asked by the Greeks
was as to the origin of life ; and extremely early
arose the doctrine of Anaximander, that all life '
originated in spontaneous generation from the
water. Later this was somewhat modified into the /
doctrine that life originated in the primordial ter-
restrial slime, or mingling of earth and water, \
especially along the emerging shores of the earth.
This was held by Empedocles. Later still, quite a
distinct idea was put forth by Anaxagoras, that life
originated in the coming together and development
of pre-existent germs in the air or ether, animals
and plants springing directly from them. This
origin of life from germs, of course surreptitiously
placed the problem only one degree further back,
apparently, but not really evading the difiiculty.
It was a fruitful idea, and thereafter many of the
doctrines as to the origin of life contained the con-
ception of primordial germs. Aristotle came near-
est the modern conception of protozoan primordial
life when he wrote that all animals and plants origi-
nated in germs composed of soft masses of matter,
although he inconsistently taught that even some
of the higher forms sprang directly from the earth,
leaving out the germ stage altogether.

The real Evolution idea among the Greeks had
its roots in the notion of the changing rather than
of the fixed order ^oTThii-igs, 'which came from

66 AMONG THE GREEKS.

Heraclitus. The essence of this principle, that
everything was in a state of movement, and noth-
ing had reached a state of rest, underHes the later
doctrine of the gradually increasing perfection of
organisms. The essence of the idea of the grad-
ual development of organisms, however, was much
earlier, for it originated with Anaximander, upon
whose rude notion of the origin of the 'fish-men'
Empedocles and other writers built up their theo-
ries. Empedocles added to the conception of devel-
opment a number of important principles. First, \
he suggested that plant life preceded animal life,
and this suggestion was taken up and expanded by
Aristotle. Second, he concluded that the present
world of life was still formative or incomplete, a
modification of the general notion of Heraclitus.
Third, he suggested, with apparently remarkable
prevision, that the first organisms were formless
masses without distinctions of sex, that afterwards
the sexes were separated, and that the existing
modes of reproduction of the less perfect were
followed by the more perfect. This idea, as we
have seen, however, was not even remotely related
to our modern conception of primordial asexual
organisms, for his 'formless masses' were mytho-
logical monsters.

Empedocles further set forth a rude doctrine of
the successive production directly from the earth
of larger animal types possessing greater or lesser
capacity of living and reproducing. The less per-

LEGACY OF THE GREEKS. 6/

feet forms, as well as the more perfect, were pro-
duced fortuitously. The misshapen, ill-combined
monsters were eliminated, one after the other, until
finally Nature produced animals capable of feeding
themselves and of propagation. Aristotle devel-
oped a wholly different notion of successive develop-
ment, more like the modern theory in the succession
of higher organisms from lower by descent and
modification.

Together with these vague conceptions of the
fact of the gradual Evolution of life, was associated
as a theoretical explanation, first, the dimly fore-
shadowed 'Survival of the Fittest' theory of Emped-^
ocles, that the perfect forms were finally produced!
as the result of a long series of fortuitous combina-
tions, and the wholly diverse theory of Aristotle
that there was no fortuity in Evolution, but that
the succession of forms was due to the action of an
internal perfecting principle originally implanted
by the Divine Intelligence.

Finally, the principles of Adaptation, or fitness of
certain structures to certain ends, had been clearly
brought out, and gave rise to the distinct problem
of the origin or cause of adaptations. So that we
can find in Aristotle, most clearly stated, the great
question which has been one of the burning ques-
tions of Biology ever since — Whether or not
adaptations are due solely to the fortuitous com-
bination of parts .^

Thus the Greeks left the later world face to face

68 AMONG THE GREEKS,

with the problem of Causation in three forms: first,
whether IntelHgent Design is constantly operating
in Nature ; second, whether Nature is under the
operation of natural causes originally implanted by
Intelligent Design ; and third, whether Nature is
under the operation of natural causes due from the
beginning to the laws of chance, and containing no
evidences of design, even in their origin.

III.

THE THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL

PHILOSOPHERS.

Eine hochst wichtige Betrachtung der Geschichte der Wissenschaften ist die,
dass sich aus den ersten Anfangen einer Entdeckung manches in den Gang des
Wissens heran- und durchzieht, welches den Fortschritt hindert, sogar cifters
lahmt. — Goethe.

As all learning in Europe was for centuries under
the guardianship of the Church, it is important to
look into the teachings of the great theologians
upon the origin and development of life. This
teaching sprang from two sources, — the revelation
of the order of Creation in the Book of Genesis,
and the natural philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.

Philo of Alexandria introduced in the first century
what has been described as the ' Hellenizing of the
Old Testament,' or the allegorical method of exe-
gesis. By this, as Erdmann observes, the Bible
narrative was found to contain a deeper, and par-
ticularly an allegorical, in addition to its literal,
interpretation ; this was not conscious disingcnu-
ousness but a natural mode of amalgamating the
Greek philosophic with the Hebraic doctrines.

Amonor the Christian Fathers the movement
towards a partly naturalistic interpretation of the
order of Creation was made by Gregory of Nyssa
in the fourth century, and was completed by Augus-
tine in the fourth and fifth centuries. Plainly as

69

70 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

the direct or instantaneous Creation of animals and
plants appeared to be taught in Genesis, Augustine
read this in the light of primary causation and the
gradual development from the imperfect to the
perfect of Aristotle.

This most influential teacher thus handed down
to his followers opinions which closely conform to
the progressive views of those theologians of the
present day who have accepted the Evolution
theory. In proof of this Greek influence we find
that Augustine also adopted some of the Greek
notions of the spontaneous generation of life. In
the Middle Ages analogous views were held by
Erigena, Roscellinus, William of Occam, Albertus
Magnus; and Augustine was finally followed by
Aquinas, who is now one of the leading authorities
of the Church. Bruno struck out into an altogether
different vein of thought.

The reaction against this scientific reading of
Genesis naturally came when Christian theology
shook off Aristotelianism, and this was brought
about indirectly by the opposition to the Arabic
science, which also embodied much of Aristotle.
Thus the first outspoken opponent of Augustine's
teaching, and first champion of literalism, was Sua-i
rez, a Jesuit of Spain, a country which had become
the second home of Arabic science and philosophy.

No advance whatever in the development of the
Evolution idea was made in this long period ; scien-
tific speculation and observation were at a standstill

AUGUSTINE. 7 J

except among the Arabs. It is a record of tlie
preservation of the progress towards the idea wliich
the Greeks had made. In the very decades when
this progress was stamped out of theology in Spain
and Italy, the modern era in the development of
the idea was opening in the teachings of Francis
Bacon and of the natural philosophers who closely
succeeded him.

The Fathers and Schoolmen.

Gregory of Nyssa (331-396) taught that Crea-
tion was potential. God imparted to matter its
fundamental properties and laws. The objects and
completed forms of the Universe developed gradu-
ally out of chaotic material.

Augustine (353-430) drew this distinction still
more sharply, as Cotterill and Giittler show, between
the virtual creation of organisms, the ratio semi-
nalis, and the actual visible cominor forth of thincrs
out of formless matter. All development takes its
natural course through the powers imparted to
matter by the Creator. Even the corporeal struct-
ure of man himself is according to this plan and
therefore a product of this natural development.
Augustine, as to the origin of life, took his ground
half-way between Biogenesis and Abiogenesis.
From the beo^innine there had existed two kinds of
germs of living things : first, visible ones, placed by
the Creator in animals and plants; and second, in-

72 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

visible ones, latent and becoming active only under
certain conditions of combination and temperature.
It is these which produce plants and animals in
great numbers without any co-operation of existing
organisms. Augustine thus sought a naturalistic
interpretation of the Mosaic record, or potential
rather than special creation, and taught that in
the institution of Nature we should not look
for miracles but for the law^s of Nature. As
Moore says : " Augustine distinctly rejected Special
Creation in favour of a doctrine which, without any
violence to language, we may call a theory of
Evolution."

Cotterill traces the history of Augustine's thought
upon Genesis. At first he found almost insuper-
able difficulties in the literal, as contrasted with the
allegorical, interpretation. It seems that the account
of Creation was a favourite subject of ridicule with
the Manichaeans, who denied the inspiration of the
Old Testament. Thus the outcome of Augustine's
studies was a volume entitled De Geiiesi contra
ManichcEOS.

Augustine took a sound philosophical position
upon natural causation, and after considering the
question of time, and saying that we ought not to
think of the six days of the Creation as being
equivalent to these solar days of ours, nor of the
working of God itself as God now works anything
in time, but rather as He has worked from Whom
time itself had its beginning. In explaining the

AUGUSTINE,

73

passage, " In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth," he says: —

"In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, as
if this were the seed of the heaven and the earth, although as
yet all the matter of heaven and of earth was in confusion ; but
because it was certain that from this the heaven and the earth would
be, therefore the material itself is called by that name." Again,
as in the foregoing passage, in a later passage he speaks of
Creation as of things being brought into due order, — " not by
intervals of time, but by series of causes, so that those things
which in the mind of God were made simultaneously might be
brought to their completion by the sixfold representation of
that one day."

Of these passages Cotterill remarks : —

"We observe that both the language itself and, yet more,
Augustine's profound sense of the impossibility of representing
in the forms of finite thought the operations of the infinite and
eternal Mind compelled this great theologian to look beyond
the mere letter of the inspired history of Creation, and to indi-
cate principles of interpretation which supply by anticipation
very valuable guidance, when we compare other conclusions of
modern science with this teaching of Holy Scripture."

Cotterill continues that Augustine again illus-
trates the work of Creation by the growth of a tree
from its seed, in which are originally all its various
branches and other parts, which do not suddenly
spring up such and so large as they are wlicn
complete, but in that order with which wc are
familiar in Nature. All these things are in the
seed, not by material substance, but by causal energy
and pote7icy, and " even so as in the grain itself

74 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

there were invisible all things simultaneously which
w^ere in time to grow into the tree, so the world
itself is to be thought of, when God simultaneously
created all things, as having at the same time in
itself all things that were made in it and with it,
when the day itself was created : not only the
heaven with the sun and moon and stars, and so
forth, but also those things w^hich the water and
the earth produced potentialiter atque causaliter ;
before that, in due time, and after long delays, they
grew up in such manner as they are now known to
us in those works of God which He is working even
to the present hour." ^

With Augustine the progress of comment upon\
the interpretation of Genesis came nearly to an 1
end. As Giittler observes, men in the cloisters and"^
other centres of culture turned to medicine and
ethics ; yet, even in this dark period, an occasional
friend of the gradual-creation idea appeared. Such
was John Scotus Erigena (800- ), who simply
borrowed from Aristotle and Augustine : " From
the Uncreated Creating Principles go forth created
and self-created beings under the embracing causes
primordiales. These causce are equivalent to the
Greek ' ideas,' that is the kinds, the eternal forms
and unchangeable grounds of reason upon which
the world is regulated. Under the influence of the
third person of the Godhead, the potentialities of
matter are developed, out of which creatures take
their origin. In a retrogressive circle, all things

AQUINAS. '- yc

return to God"; here Erigena turned to Plato's
conception of Final Cause.

Thomas Aquinas. — Of much greater influence
is the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) as
late as the middle of the thirteenth century, for he
was and is one of the highest authorities in the
Church. He does not contribute to the Evolution
idea, but simply expounds Augustine : " As to pro-
duction of plants, Augustine holds a different view,
... for some say that on the third day plants
were actually produced, each in his kind — a view
favoured by the superficial reading of Scripture.
But Augustine says that the earth is then said to
have brought forth grass and trees causaliter ; that
is, it then received power to produce them." (Quot-
ing Genesis II. 4): "For in those first days, . . .
God made creation primarily or causaliter, and
then rested from His work."

Arabic Science and Philosophy.

If we now look back several centuries before
Aquinas to the Arabs, we find that, while science
declined in Europe, it was kept alive, or rather re-
vived, in Arabia. The natural philosophy of the
Arabs, which was largely derived from Aristotle,
was destined to exert a considerable influence
in Europe. Between 813 and Z^ Aristotle was
translated into Arabic, and his works were soon
held in the greatest reverence. Avicenna (980-1037)

^6 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

marked the highest point which science reached
in Arabia, and the cuhiiination of the encyclopaedic
and original studies. Thereafter there was a de-
chne in the East, and about the same period there
came the inauguration of scientific and philosophi-
cal studies in the West. Between 961 and 976
scientific works were rapidly imported into Spain,
and the interest in these subjects became intense.
The three writers from whom we may quote
fragments are Avicenna in Arabia, and Avempace
and Abubacer in Spain. Draper quotes from Avi-
cenna on the origin of mountains, showing that he
was a uniformitarian : —

" Mountains may be due to two causes. Either they are effects
of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during
a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cut-
ting for itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being
of different kinds, some soft, some hard. The winds and waters
disintegrate the one, but leave the other intact. Most of the emi-
nences of the earth have had this latter origin. It would require
a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished,
during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat dimin-
ished in size. But that water has been the main cause of these
effects, is proved by the existence of fossil remains of aquatic and
other animals on many mountains."

This indicates that a careful search through
Arabic natural philosophy would probably yield
other evidences of knowledge, not only of the uni-
formity of past and present geological changes, but
of the gradual development of life. It is unlikely
that the Arabs read Aristotle without extending his

A V EM PACE.

77

theory of the origin of life to their wide survey of
Nature.

We take from Giittler the following passages re-
garding the Spanish philosophers : —

" The Arabic philosophers in Spain threw into a stronger light
the natural connection between the inorganic and the organic
world. In Avempace's (Ibn-Badja) treatise there are said to
exist between men, animals, plants, and minerals, strong relations
which bind them into a single and united whole. Through
various grades of development, the human soul rises from the
level of the instincts which it shares with animals to the ' acquired
intellect,' wherein it frees itself more and more from the material
and the potential. The ' acquired intellect ' is only an elimination
of the ' active intellect,' or the Godhead, and thereby it is pos-
sible to identify in the last stage of recognition the subject with
the object, the thought with the existence."

Avempace, as he was known in Europe, died
in 1 1 38. He was succeeded by Abubacer (Ibn-
Tophail), who died in 1185.

Abubacer was also a poet, and he handled an
analogous theme in an Oriental romance upon the
birth of the ' Nature-man ' : —

" There happens to be under the equator an island, where Man
comes into the world without father or mother ; by spontaneous
generation he arises, directly in the form of a boy, from the earth,
while the spirit, which, like the sunshine, emanated from God,
imites with the body, growing out of a soft, unformed mass.
Without any intelligent surroundings, and without education, this
' Nature-man,' through simple observation of the outer world, and
through the combination of various appearances, rises to the
knowledge of the world and of the Godhead. First he perceives
the individuals, and then he recognizes the various species as

yS THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

independent forms ; but as he compares the varieties and species
with each other, he comes to the conclusion that they are all
sprung from a single animal spirit, and at the same time that the
entire animal race forms a single whole. He makes the same dis-
covery among the plants, and finally he sees the animal and plant
forms in their unity, and discovers that among all their differences
they have sensitiveness and feeling in common ; from which he
concludes that animals and plants are only one and the same
thing."

In the middle of the twelfth century, the transla-
tion of the works of the Arabs into Latin began}\
The Church Provincial Council of Paris in 1209
forbade the study of these Arabic writers, and
included Aristotle's Natural PJiilosophy in the
interdict, although Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas endeavoured to uphold the orthodoxy of
Aristotle against the prejudices which the heretical
glosses of Arabic writers had raised against him. J

Bruno and Suarez.

In the same year with Bruno, the most extreme
rationalist among the theologians in science, was
born Suarez, the most extreme conservative.

Giordano Bruno (i 548-1600), in his biology,
imbibed the diverse influences of the Greeks, of
Lucretius, of Arabic philosophy, and of Oriental
mysticism, and evolved a highly speculative and
vague system of natural philosophy. From the
physics of the Stoics he derived the idea that all
living beings had a greater or less share of the

BRUNO, yg

Universal Force, a force which leads to steps corre-
sponding in the world of organized beings to a
gradated scale of development (like the scale of
Aristotle, or, later, of Bonnet, in which each form
was a starting-point for the next). Therefore
Bruno saw in plants the latent forces of the gene-
ration of animals; in stones, the collective kinds
of plants; in man, the whole lower creation.
GUttler traces Bruno's philosophy to Nicolas of
Cusa, and characterizes it as monistic. Lanee and
Erdmann more accurately speak of his system as
pantheistic. In profession, but not in method,
Bruno was scientific. He followed Aristotle, and
forestalled Bacon, in teaching Induction ; one of
his chief maxims being that " the investigation
of Nature in the unbiased light of reason is our
only guide to truth." Bruno's admirers have re-
cently claimed for him anticipation not only of the
method of Bacon, but of the 'perfection' doctrine
and the theory of monads of Leibnitz, and point
out in his physical teachings the theory of the
centre of gravity of planets, of the elliptical orbits
of comets, and the perfect sphericity of the earth.

By selecting certain passages from his profuse
writings, we may credit Bruno with teaching some
elements of the Evolution idea; but we must first
see how such special passages are enlarged by
others, in order to reach Bruno's real conceptions.
In estimating his originality, we must be familiar
with Greek, Arabic, and Oriental writings, from

80 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

which he drew as an omnivorous reader. Some of
the passages quoted by Brinton and others give a
very misleading idea of the real extent of Bruno's
grasp, for we unconsciously read into them our
present knowledge, as where he says : " The mind of
man differs from that of lower animals and of plants,
not in quality but in quantity. . . . Each individ-
ual is the resultant of innumerable individuals. . . .
Each species is the starting-point for the next. . . .
No individual is the same to-day as yesterday."

Bruno, with Aristotle, finds that this eternal
change is not purposeless, but is ever towards the
elimination of defects ; henoe his alleged anticipa-,
tion of the optimism of Leibnitz and of the theory
of the perfectibility of man. As to 'matter 'and
*form,' we again find him following Aristotle in
some passages ; with him, Form seems to stand
for the ultimate law of the objective Universe, yet
matter is not complete in its forms, because
" Nature produces its objects not by subtraction
and addition, but only by separation and unfolding.
Thus taught the wisest men among the Greeks ;
and Moses, in describing the origin of life, intro-
duces the universal efiicient Being thus speaking :
' Let the earth bring forth the living creature ;
let the waters bring forth the living creature that
hath life' — as though he said — 'let matter bring
them forth.' " But we find an important departure
from Aristotle, where Bruno conceives of matter
not as potential but as actual and active.

BRUNO. 8 1

There is thus great room for difference of opinion
as to how far Bruno was an evolutionist in our
sense, and we find different authors taking different
standpoints according to their greater or less appre-
ciation of the essential elements of the Evolution
idea. Lasson holds that Bruno was a follower of
Empedocles, and therein a prophet of Darwinism,
in the capacity of perfection and the unity of devel-
opment of organic life. Krause, in his biography
of Erasmus Darwin, maintains that Bruno held
merely to the identity of the human and animal
soul, without actually conceiving their unity of
orio^in. Here enters Aristotelianism aoain in
Bruno's thought, for while he conceived all Evo-
lution as based on endless changes in matter, he
describes this movement simply as the outward
expression of an indwelling soul. This intelli-
gence is displayed in three grades, which corre-
spond with the steps in the scale of development,
because we are free to suppose that " to the sound
of the harp of the Universal Apollo (the World
Spirit), the lower organisms are called by stages
to higher, and the lower stages are connected by
intermediate forms with the higher. . . . Every
species is first shown in Nature before it passes
into life, thus each becomes the starting-point for
the next ; as in the expansion of the form of the
embryo there is an unbroken continuity into the
species of man or beast." At other points he
speaks as if this soul or intelligence was conceived

82 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

in a dualistic sense, for he says : " The perfecting
power of intelligence does not rest upon another
or upon more, but upon the whole."

In Geology, Bruno appears as a uniformitarian,
and describes the gradual changes in Nature, not
as cataclysmal, but as following their natural course.
Thus, he argues against the short six thousand
years of the Biblical chronology. This was also
not original with Bruno ; for he was preceded in
the tenth century by Arabic geologists, as seen
in the quotation from Avicenna. It is highly prob-
able that Bruno drew upon the Arabs for many
other of his scientific ideas.

Finally we may quote a passage from Bruno's
satire, — the Cabala of the Pegasan Horse^ pub-
lished in 1585, a dialogue between Sabasto and
Onorio, in which Bruno affirms the Oriental doc-
trine of Metempsychosis, and explains his views
of the development of organic life. He first com-
pares the animal and human intellect and contrasts
monkeys with men in their absence of tool-bearing
hands. Speaking of the tongue of the parrot as
fitted to utter any sort of sound, he says that the
parrot lacks perception and memory equal and akin
to man's ; then he ^:ouches upon the instincts of
the parrot and opposes the idea that they are alto-
gether different from the intelligence of man. Then
he passes on to say that the lower animals are
directed by an unerring intelligence, yet this Is not
identical with the efficient universal intelligence

SUAREZ. 83

which directs and causes all to understand. Thus,
"above all animals there is an active sense; that is,
one which causes all different sensations, and by
which all are actually sensitive ; and one active in-
tellect, the one, that is, which causes all different
understanding and by which all are actively intelli-
gent." He goes on to say that out of the same
corporeal material, all bodies are made, and then
occurs the following paragraph: "I add this —
' that through diverse causes, habits, orders, meas-
ures, and numbers of body and spirit, there are
diverse temperaments and natures, different organs
are produced, and different genera of things appear.'"
Francisco Suarez (i 548-161 7) was almost the
last eminent representative of Scholasticism. Mivart,
in his Genesis of Species, places him among the post-
medieval theologians of high authority, who devoted
a separate section of their works " in opposition to
those who maintain the distinct creation of the vari-
ous kinds — or substantial forms — of organic life."
We thus derive the impression that Suarez should
be classed with Augustine and Aquinas as a teacher
of development; but Huxley in his brilliant article,
"Mr. Darwin's Critics,"^ completely dismisses this
enrolment with the Evolutionists, and sets him up
as a rigid Special Creationist. He was, in fact, the
third sreat theolodan to treat of Creation, and yet
as he differed radically in his interpretation of Gene-
sis from both Augustine and Aquinas, he may be

1 The Contemporary Review, 1 87 1.

84 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPILERS.

considered one of the founders of the Special-Crea-
tion view as orthodox teaching upon the origin
of species, — the teaching which more than any
other has led to the schism among the philoso-
phers of Nature. Mivart quotes a number of
passages showing that Suarez gave this matter con-
siderable thought. As was later done by Linnaeus,
Suarez pointed out that there might be some new
or post-creation species which were generated by
the commingling of original species ; he considered
the mule and the leopard as instances of this kind.

Huxley also shows that Suarez devotes a special
treatise, Tractatus de opere sex Dierum, to the dis-
cussion of all the problems which arise out of the
Mosaic account of Creation; he here reviews the
opinions of Philo and Augustine upon these ques-
tions, and distinctly rejects them. He suggests that
the failure of Aquinas to controvert Augustine's
interpretation, arose from his deference to the au-
thority of Augustine, and he maintains that the ' day '
of Scripture was a natural day of twenty-four hours,
not a period of time as Augustine considered it ; he
further declares that the entire work of Creation
took place in the space of six days. Huxley con-
cludes : —

" As regards the creation of animals and plants, therefore, it is
clear that Suarez, so far from distinctly asserting derivative creation,
denies it as distinctly and positively as he can ; that he is at much
pains to refute St. Augustine's opinions ; that he does not hesitate
to regard the faint acquiescence of St. Thomas Aquinas in the

SUAREZ.

85

views of his brother-saint, as a kindly subterfuge on the account
of Divus Thomas, and that he affirms his own view to be that
which is supported by the authority of the Fathers of the Church."

Mivart, In his Lessons from Nature, has replied
to Huxley, claiming that while Suarez rejected Au-
gustine's view as to the fact of Creation, he testifies
as to the vaHdity of the principles on which the
doctrine of derivative Creation reposes."^ Yet he is
not able to controvert Huxley's exposition of Sua-
rez' real opinions ; he does controvert Huxley's state-
ment that Suarez is a leading authority, and quotes
Cardinal Norris and others upon the views of Au-
gustine, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas, to
the effect that these teachers are still the standards
upon these questions.

The truth is that all classes of theolosfians de-
parted from the original philosophical and scientific
standards of some of the Fathers of the Church,
and that Special Creation became the universal
teaching from the middle of the sixteenth to the
middle of the nineteenth centuries. It is the recent
establishment of Evolution which has led to the
revival of Augustine's broad and true interpretation,
and there is no doubt that Mivart's contention so
far as the older writers are concerned is correct.

"^ Lessons from Nature. London, 1876. Page 447.

86 theologians and natural philosophers.

The Awakening of Science.

Before speaking of the philosophers who now
became the custodians of the Evolution idea and
of the speculative writers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, let us glance for a moment
at the general advance of knowledge.

Universities in Europe were founded at the
beginning of the twelfth century, following those
established by the Arabs ; Oxford was founded at
the beginning of the thirteenth century. During a
long period all naturalists were simply compilers.
Among these compilers were Clusius, Rondelet,
Belon ; finally we find Conrad Gesner (1516-1565)
writing a complete bibliography of Zoology, and
leading the naturalists of the sixteenth century.
About this time Cesalpin (15 19-1603) wrote of
Vegetable Anatomy, and there sprang up in Padua
the School of Anatomy of Vesalius (15 14-1564),
Fallopius, and his pupil Fabricius, who in turn
taught the immortal Harvey. In 161 9 Harvey
discovered the circulation of the blood and founded
Embryology. The systematic classification of ani-
mals and plants then arose as a distinct branch in
the writings of Ray (i 628-1 704), Tournefort, and
Magnol. Ray was the precursor of Linnaeus. In
the second half of the seventeenth century and
beginning of the eighteenth, the study of the
smaller organisms began with Leeuwenhoek, Mai-,
pighi, and Swammerdam. " We owe to this period,"

NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS. S;

says St. Hilaire, "the foundation of Microscopy;
Anatomy enriched and joined to Physiology ; Com-
parative Anatomy studied with care ; Classification
placed on a rational and systematic basis." It was
these sciences and especially the rise of clearer ideas
on the nature of species, which first gave specu-
lation upon Evolution its modern trend, bringing
up the origin and the mutability of species as two
^reat central questions.

During these two progressive centuries there
were three classes of writers who contributed more
or less directly to the foundations of modern Evo-
lution, before its open exposition by Buffon. First,
the Naturalists, among whom few speculative
questions were in vogue, were nevertheless really
building up the future materials of thought. Second,
the Speculative Evolutionists, who gave a free
rein to thoroughly unsound ideas upon the origin
of species and preserved many of the early Greek
notions. Finally, there were the great Natural
Philosophers, such as Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz,
Hume, ending with the later German school, Kant,
Lessing, Herder, and Schelling.

It is a very striking fact, that the basis of our
modern methods of studying the Evolution prob-
lem was established not by the early naturalists
nor by the speculative writers, but by the Philos-
ophers. They alone were upon the main track of
modern thought. It is evident that they were
groping in the dark for a working theory of the

88 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

Evolution of life, and it is remarkable that they
clearly perceived from the outset that the point
to which observation should be directed was not
the past but the present mutability of species, and
further, that this mutability was simply the varia-
tion of individuals on an extended scale. Thus
Variation w^as brought into prominence as the
point to which observation should be directed.

This is one of the contributions of the Philos-
ophers to the history of the Evolution theory. ItJ
seems to have sprung up afresh out of the advances
in Biology of the previous century, for it was some-
thino^ which is not found amono^ the Greeks. It
was Bacon who pointed out the evidence for Vari-
ation in animals and plants, and the bearing of this
upon the production of new species and upon the
gradations of life. Leibnitz took a second step
in indicating that the Evolution of life was a
necessary part of a system of cosmic philosophy,!
and although wholly at sea in his theory of Evo-J
lution, he added to the evidence for it by giving
examples of gradations of character between living
and extinct forms, as proofs of the universal grada-
tion or connection between species. Thus, among
these philosophers we find pointed out the gra-
dations of type, the facts of variation, and the
bearing of these facts upon the production of new
species, also the analogy between artificial selection
practised by man in producing new forms and the
production of new forms in Nature.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS. 89

These were original departures, in which these
writers were thoroughly logical and sound, and
were laying foundations for those observations
which finally led to the establishment of the Evo-
lution theory. Yet it must not be inferred that
the Evolution of life was a very prominent ele-
ment in their philosophy.

In the larger aspect of their teaching, namely,
in the broad question of Evolution itself as the
law of the Universe, they all found their inspira-
tion in Greek literature. Bacon did not put forth
a general Evolution system; Descartes and Leib-
nitz, who were the first to do so, drew from Greek
poetry and philosophy, and the same is true of
all the later philosophers. Kant and the later
German philosophers drew not only from these
sources, but from suggestions found in contempo-
rary science, from Linnaeus and especially from
Buffon. It is very probable also that careful search
among the earlier naturalists would reveal an antici-
pation of some of the problems which are set forth
in Bacon and Leibnitz.

Their first great gift, as we have said, was in
establishing the right trend to observation ; their
second o:ift was the outcome of their battle for the
principle of natural causation. From Bacon to
Kant, who, it is true, wavered in advocating this
principle, this was a theme of the first rank ; that is,
the operation of natural causes in the world rather
than of the constant interference of a Creator in

90 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

his works. In the doubts which were felt as to
natural causation, we see proofs of the close rela-
tions between the Church, the State, and Science,
and that this principle, as well as that of Evolu-
tion, was under the ban of unorthodoxy.

The Natural Philosophers.

Francis Bacon (i 561-1626) thought lightly of
Greek science. He strongly condemned the rever-
ence for it as a bar to progress, and in his sweeping
criticisms was far too severe, especially upon Aris-
totle, in whom he undoubtedly found his famous
principles of induction.

" Nor," he says, " must we omit the opinion or, rather, proph-
ecy of an Egyptian priest in regard to the Greeks, that they
would forever remain children without any antiquity of knowledge,
or knowledge of antiquity ; for they certainly have this in com-
mon with children, that they are prone to talking and incapable
of generation, their wisdom being loquacious and unproductive of
effects. Hence the external signs derived from the origin and
birthplace of our philosophy are not favourable."

He failed to appreciate Greek suggestiveness,
and little foresaw the influence it was destined to
exert in framing modern Evolution. If we are to
judge Bacon himself by his maxims and aphorisms,
no place would be too high for him ; but judging
him by his actual researches and practices, and
carefully estimating his real influence upon poster-
ity, we must place him below Harvey, whose brill-

BACON. QI

iant application of the inductive method in science
he is said to have ignored.

In the Advajicejnent of Learning (Book V.) lie
points out the art of indication. " For indication
proceeds (i) from experiment to experiment, or
(2) from experiment to axioms, which may again
point out new experiments. The former we call
learned experience, and the latter the interpretation
of Nature, Novum Organum, or new machine of
mind." This ' art ' substantially implies the use of
the working hypothesis. That Bacon, as early as
1620, fully grasped the wealth of knowledge, which
could be gained from observation, experiment, and
induction, is shown repeatedly in the course of his
works. The following passages are cited because
they bear especially upon the question of species,
and show that Bacon was one of the first, if not the
first, to raise the problem of the mutability of spe-
cies as possibly a result of the accumulation of
variations. He speaks, in the first place, of varia-
tions of an extreme kind [Novum Organum, Book
11., Section 29).

"In the eighth rank of prerogative instances, we will place
deviating instances, such as the errors of Nature or strange and
monstrous objects, in which Nature deviates and turns from her
ordinary course. For the errors of Nature differ from singular
instances, inasmuch as the latter are the miracles of species, the
former of the individuals. Their use is much the same, for they
rectify the understanding in opposition to habit, and reveal com-
mon forms. For with regard to these, also, we must not desist
from inquiry till we discern the cause of the deviation; the

92 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

cause does not, however, in such cases rise to a regular form, but
only in the latent process towards such a form, for he who is ac-
quainted with the paths of Nature will more readily observe their
deviations, and vice versa, he who has learnt her deviations will be
able more accurately to describe her paths."

Having thus spoken of deviations or variations,
and of the necessity of understanding the normal
type in order to detect the variation, also of the de-
sirability of studying the cause of the variation,
Bacon proceeds to point out that it is possible for
man to produce variations experimentally, and shows
that living objects are well adapted to experimental
work : —

" They differ again from singular instances, by being much more
apt for practice and the operative branch. For it would be very
difficult to generate new species, but less so to vary known species,
and thus produce many rare and unusual results. The passage
from the miracles of Nature to those of Art is easy ; for if Nature
be once seized in her variations and the cause be manifest, it will
be easy to lead her by Art to such variation as she was first led
to by chance ; and not only to that, but others, since deviations
on the one side lead and open the way to others in every direction."

In the above passage Bacon points out that in arti-
ficial selection we take advantage of the chance varia-
tions of Nature, and accumulate them. In the next
passage he points out the presence of transitional
fornis in Nature between two types (Section 30.) :

" In the ninth rank of prerogative instances we will place bor-
dering instances, which we are also wont to term participants. They
are such as exhibit those species of bodies which appear to be
composed of two species, or to be the rudiments between one and

BACON.

93

the other. They may well be classed with the singular or hetero-
dite instances ; for in the whole system of things, they are rare and
extraordinary. Yet from their dignity they must be treated of
and classed separately, for they point out admirably the order and
constitution of things, and suggest the causes of the number and
quality of the more common species in the Universe, leading the
understanding from that which is, to that which is possible. We
have examples of them in Moss, which is something between pu-
trescence and a plant ; in some Comets, which hold a place between
stars and ignited meteors ; in Flying Fishes, between fishes and
birds ; and in Bats, between birds and quadrupeds."

Bacon also observed " that plants sometimes de-
generate to the point of changing into other plants,"
but so far as I know gave no grounds of support
for this opinion. These quotations show that even
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the
mutability of species was a live question, which was
being more or less discussed, and that mutability
was seen in its modern bearings upon* Evolution.

Bacon went further, and in his Nova Atlantis we
find he projects the establishment of a Scientific
Institution, to be devoted to the progress of the
natural sciences, for experiments upon the meta-
morphoses of organs and observations upon what
causes species to vary ; for researches which would
reveal the manner in which species had multiplied
and become diversified in a state of Nature. After
three centuries this project is materializing so that
one of our new experimental stations might well
be called the Baconian Institute of Experimental
Evolution.

94 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

The central idea of the grand Evolution of life is |
frequently implied rather than clearly expressed in :
Bacon's writings. He differed from Descartes and
later philosophers in proposing the method by
which the natural system of the Universe could be
ascertained, rather than in speculating upon the
system itself.

Rene Descartes (i 596-1650) threw off the yoke
of Scholasticism in France as Bacon had in Enof-
land. His thought took an entirely different turn,
rather the philosophical than the scientific. In his
Principes de la Philosophie, published in 1637, he
cautiously advanced his belief that the physical
universe is a mechanism, and that as such it is
explicable upon physical principles. Buffon cred-
its him with taking here the most daring step 1
possible in philosophy, in attempting to explain all \
things upon principles of natural law. There is \
no doubt that at the time Descartes took this step,
it required even greater moral courage than his,
to break away from the prevailing dogmas as to
Special Creation. In a passage upon Creation,
which Huxley aptly terms a singular exhibition of
force and weakness, Descartes wavers between his
conviction as to the true order of things, and the
prevailing teaching :

He marks the difference between the natural order of gradual
development and the unnatural doctrine of sudden creation, which
at the time had become the prevailing and prescribed teaching.
Further, he intimates that all things are ordered by natural laws :

LEIBNITZ. QC

"All the same, if we can imagine a few intelligible and simple
principles upon which the stars, and earth, and all the visible
world might have been produced (although we well know that
it has not been produced in this fashion), we reach a better
understanding of the nature of all things than if we describe
simply how things now are, or how we believe them to have been,
created. Because I believe I have discovered such principles,
I shall endeavour to explain them."

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (i 646-1 71 6), the
first of the great philosophers of Germany, advo-
cated two ideas in his writings which exerted a
great and widely misleading influence in Biology.
The first was his doctrine of Continuity, and the
second, his doctrine of Perfectibility in the Monads.
The law of Perfectibility is said to have been sug-
gested by Bruno, but as applied to the animal
creation certainly came more or less directly from
Aristotle. It is surprising to find how Leibnitz'
principle of Continuity adapted itself to the idea
of Evolution of organic beings. In part from obser-
vations of his own, and probably in part influenced
by Aristotle, Leibnitz expressed the law of Conti-
nuity as applied to life as follows: "All natural
orders of beings present but a single chain, in which
the different classes of animals, like so many rings,
are so closely united that it is not possible either
by observation or imagination to determine where
one ends or begins."

He was very familiar both with Bacon and
Descartes, and by the former had probably had
his attention called to the matter of Variation.

96 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

Huxley quotes from the ProtogcBa (XXVI.) a pas-
sage which proves that Leibnitz also had his own
thoughts and observations upon the mutability of
species. He is speaking of the fossil Ammonites
related to the living Nautilus, and, after noting the
infinite variations in their shells, and the gradations
which are presented among these forms, says : —

" Some are surprised that there are to be seen everywhere in
rocks such objects as one might seek for in vain elsewhere in the
known world, or certainly, at least, in his own neighbourhood.
Such are the horns of Amnion (Ammonites), which are reckoned
a kind of Nautilus, although they are said to differ always both in
form and size, sometimes indeed being found a foot in diameter,
from all those animal natures which the sea exhibits. Yet who
has thoroughly searched those hidden recesses or subterranean
depths? And how many animals hitherto unknown to us has
a new world to offer? Indeed it is credible that by means of
such great changes (of habitat) even the species of animals are
often changed."

His law of Continuity was in another passage
expressed as follows — showing conclusively that he
held very positive views as to the evolution of life : —

"All advances by degrees in Nature, and nothing by leaps,
and this law as apphed to each, is part of my doctrine of Con-
tinuity. Although there may exist in some other world species
intermediate between Man and the Apes, Nature has thought it
best to remove them from us, in order to establish our superiority
beyond question. I speak of intermediate species, and by no
means limit myself to those leading to Man. I strongly approve
of the research for analogies ; plants, insects, and Comparative
Anatomy will increase these analogies, especially when we are
able to take advantage of the microscope more than at present."

SPINOZA.

97

Leibnitz' main teachings, as in part a revival
of Aristotle's, certainly had an entirely different
trend from those of Bacon and Descartes. He
stimulated the speculations of Diderot, Maupertuis,
Bonnet, Robinet, and others, of the speculative
writers ; in short, he founded a 'school ' with his Con-
tinuity doctrines. On the other hand, like Bacon,
he appears, in such passages as those quoted above,
to have especially directed research to those natural
gradations between species which have become the
pillars of Evolution.

Spinoza (i 632-1 677) took a similar but firmer
ground in regard to natural causation : " The
natural laws and principles by which all things are
made and some forms are changed into others,
are everywhere and through all time the same."
To Pascal (162 3-1 662) was attributed by Geoffrey
St. Hilaire a thoroughly evolutionistic view as to
the origin of animals and plants ; yet diligent search
by other authors has failed to locate this in any
of his writings. In the close of his treatise upon
Optics, Newton (1642-1727) pointed out the uni-
formity of structure which pervades all animal
types. Hume (1711-1776) also concluded that the
world mieht have been orenerated rather than created
by the activity of its own inherent principles, and
Leslie Stephens points out that he also considered
the ' survival of the fittest ' principle.

In those days of few printed books and concen-
trated thoucrht, such scattered suggestions as these

H

98 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

generated into opinions and theories. They are
the minor features of the environment of the Evolu-
tion idea. The final and the fullest expression of
Evolution in philosophical literature is found in
Kant.

Emmanuel Kant (i 724-1804) was born sixteen
years after Buffon and Linn^us, and therefore
thought and wrote after natural history had made
very great advances. The ideas of Selection, Adap-
tation, Environment, and Inheritance, which are
attributed to him as original by Haeckel, are also
found in the works of Buffon. Buffon's most ex-
treme views were expressed between 1 760-70, while
Kant's extreme views were expressed between 1757
and 1771.

We owe to Schultze a very full exposition of all
the passages in the writings of the great Konigsberg
philosopher which bear upon tlie Evolution theory.
In his earlier years (1755), Kant published a work
entitled The General History of Nature and Theory
of the Heavens, embracing an attempt to reconcile
Newton and Leibnitz, or Nature from the mechan-
ical and teleological standpoints. At this time he
was attracted by the mechanism of Lucretius.
Haeckel points out, that in this work Kant took a
very advanced position as to the domain of natural
causation, or, as Haeckel terms it, 'mechanism in
the domain of life,' while in his later work (1790),
his criticism of The Teleological Faculty of Jtidg-
inent^ he took a much more conservative position.

KANT. 99

In the former, he considers all Nature under the
domain of natural causes, while in the latter, he
divides Nature into the 'inorganic' in which nat-
ural causes prevail, and the 'organic' in which the
active teleological principle prevails. There was,
therefore, in Kant's later work a cleft between
primeval matter and the domain of life ; for in tlie
latter he assumed the presence of final causes act-
ing for definite ends. As Haeckel says : —

"After having quite correctly maintained the origin of organic
forms out of raw matter by mechanical laws (in the manner of
crystallization), as well as a gradual development of the different
species by descent from one common original parent, Kant adds,
'but he, the archaeologist of Nature, that is the paleontologist,
must for this end ascribe to the common mother, an organization
ordained purposely with a view to the needs of all her offspring,
otherwise the possibility of suitabihty of form in the products of
the animal and vegetable kingdoms cannot be conceived at all.' "

Of course we cannot here follow out all the rea-
sons for Kant's change of view from his earlier to
his later years ; we simply see that he was staggered
by the impossibility of human investigation ever
reaching an explanation of the laws which have
governed the derivation of all organic beings, from
polyps to men ; he declared that this doctrine (of
Evolution) was compatible with the mechanical
conception of Nature, although no natural science
can attain it; it would therefore remain a daring
flight of reason. In a striking passage upon the
limits of our knowledge, he says : —

100 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

" It is quite certain that we cannot become sufficiently acquainted
with organized creatures and their hidden potentiaUties by aid of
purely mechanical natural principles, much less can we explain
them ; and this is so certain, that we may boldly assert that it is
absurd for man even to conceive such an idea, or to hope that |
a Newton may one day arise even to make the production of a 1
blade of grass comprehensible, according to natural laws ordained
by no intention; such an insight we must absolutely deny to
man."

As Haeckel observes, Darwin rose up as Kant's
Newton ; for he offered an explanation of the pro-
duction and of the development of those very
structures and adaptations in Nature, which re-
mained wholly unexplained until 1858. Haeckel
expresses evident disappointment at Kant's posi-
tion ; yet this position may be regarded as rais-
ing Kant higher in the scale of science, if not of
philosophy. If he could not even conceive of any
natural law whereby these beautiful adaptations of
Nature could be explained, he was not justified in
making a bold assumption of the existence of such
a law. The feeling that Newton and other physi-
cal philosophers had supplied the inorganic world
with its regulating principles would have made it
logical for Kant, like Descartes, to carry his reason-
ing a step further into the world of life. But his
logic and philosophy w^ere held back by his scien-
tific instinct for evidence, and evidence was then
wholly lacking ; for even the explanation offered by
Lamarck was not available.

Kant was undoubtedly familiar with the writings

KANT. 10 1

of Buffon and Maupertuis ; he alludes to them both ;
in his second work, prepared in 1757, ^^^-^^ not pub-
lished until much later, it is evident that his stand-
point towards Evolution was very similar to that of
Buffon in what we call his ' middle period.' Later,
in 1763, he parallels Buffon in tracing back all the
higher forms of life to simpler elementary forms.
He traces the changes produced in man by migra-
tion, differences of climate and the like, and deduces
the law of degeneration from the originally created
types of species. In 1771 he also brings man into
the ranks of Nature, and alludes to his former
quadrupedal attitude, here agreeing with Buffon and
Helvetius. In his study upon the races of man we
also find that he expresses the principle of Survival
of the Fittest, as applied to groups of organisms,
very much in the form in which it had been stated
by Buffon. In this connection he quotes Maupertuis.
He also sees the force of accidental variation and
of artificial selection in the production of certain
external colours.

Kant's comprehensive view of Evolution, and his
hesitation as to the problem of causation, is all
summed up in the following remarkable passage
(i 790), quoted by Schultze : —

"It is desirable to examine the great domain of organized
beings bv means of a methodical comparative anatomy, in onler
to discover whether we may not find in them something resem-
bling a system, and that too in connection with their mode of gen-
eration, so that we may not be compelled to stop short with a mere

I02 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

consideration of forms as they are — which gives us no insight into
their generation — and need not despair of gaining a full insight
into this department of Nature. The agreement of so many kinds
of animals in a certain common plan of structure, which seems to
be visible not only in their skeletons, but also in the arrangement
of the other parts — so that a wonderfully simple typical form, by
the shortening and lengthening of some parts, and by the suppres-
sion and development of others, might be able to produce an
immense variety of species — gives us a ray of hope, though
feeble, that here perhaps some results may be obtained, by the
application of the principle of the mechanism of Nature, without
which, in fact, no science can exist. This analogy of forms (in
so far as they seem to have been produced in accordance with a
common prototype, notwithstanding their great variety) strengthens
the supposition that they have an actual blood-relationship, due to
derivation from a common parent ; a supposition which is arrived
at by observation of the graduated approximation of one class of
animals to another, beginning with the one in which the principle
of purposiveness seems to be most conspicuous, namely man, and
extending down to the polyps, and from these even down to mosses
and lichens, and arriving finally at raw matter, the lowest stage of
Nature observable by us. From this raw matter and its forces, the
whole apparatus of Nature seems to have been derived according
to mechanical laws (such as those which resulted in the produc-
tion of crystals) ; yet this apparatus, as seen in organic beings, is
so incomprehensible to us, that we feel ourselves compelled to
conceive for it a different principle. But it would seem that the
archaeologist of Nature is at liberty to regard the great Fainily of
creatures (for as a Family we must conceive it, if the above-men-
tioned continuous and connected relationship has a real founda-
tion) as having sprung from the immediate results of her earliest
revolutions, judging from all the laws of their mechanisms known
to or conjectured by him."

What a connecting link ^etween all past and
future thougKnies in this great passage ! We can

HERDER. 103

trace the influence of every earlier philosopher from
Aristotle down, and recognize the problems which
have faced every later one.

Lessing's (i 729-1 781) views of Cosmology in-
cluded the doctrine of a law of development which
embraced all Nature, and led him also to the idea
of a gradated scale of organisms.

JoHANN Gottfried Herder (i 744-1803) was a
student of Kant in Konigsberg between 1762 and
1764. We have seen that Kant's earliest contribu-
tion to the Evolution theory was published in 1755,
so that it is probable that Herder came under the
influence of Kant's earlier views. As shown bv
Barenbach, who has made a special study of this
side of his philosophy in his Herder ah Vorg'dngcr
Darwms. Herder was less cautious than his
master, and appears almost as a literal prophet of
the modern natural philosophy. In a general way
he upholds the doctrine of the transformation of
the lower and higher forms of life, of a continuous
transformation from lower to higher types, and of
the law of Perfectibility. " Every combination of
force and form," he says, "is neither stability nor
retrogression, but progress. Take off the outer
shell and there is no death in Nature. Every dis-
turbance marks the transfer to a higher tyj^e." In
his Ideeii zur Geschichte der Menschheit, published in
Tubingen in 1806, we find the following passage: —

"A certain unity of type pervades all the different forms of
life, like a main type which can display the widest variations.

104 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

Similarities of external and, still more, of internal, structure per-
vade all the land animals and are repeated in man. The am-
phibia, birds, fishes, insects, water animals, depart in widening
degrees from this main type, which is lost in the plant and inor-
ganic creation. Our vision reaches no further, but all these trans-
fers render it not improbable that in the series of extinct forms
the same type, in a ruder and simpler form, may have prevailed.
We can, therefore, assume that, according to their nearness to
man, all beings have their greater or less likeness to him, and that
the nature of all Hfe seems to conform to a main single plasticity
of organization."

We see here that Herder clearly formulated the
doctrine of unity of type, which prevailed among all
the evolutionists of the period immediately following.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775—
1854) at the age of twenty published his Ideen zur
einer Philosophie der Natur. Here he first unfolded
his ideas of the Philosophy of Nature, Kant having
spoken of the science of Nature. One section of
his philosophy was followed and developed by Oken,
but Schelling was greatly admired also by Kiel-
meyer, and undoubtedly exercised great influence
upon Goethe. Isidore St. Hilaire pays him a high
tribute, and speaks at length of the admiration felt
for Schelling in France ; he places him midway
between the general philosopher, typified by the
more metaphysical writers, and the philosopher of
natural objects, such as Geoffroy St. Hilaire.
Schelling independently arrived at the conclusion
of Kielmeyer, that all the functions of life are but
the diverse modifications of a single force.

SCHELLING.

105

We here meet with a natural culmination of the
progress of the Evolution idea in philosophy, caused
by this departure from induction.

For Schelling's method was deductive, and he
sought in deduction the main sources of human
knowledge. At the point of empiricism, where,
according to Cuvier, science ends, he held that true
science begins. By this he meant, that if tlie
human reason can question and answer upon its
own existence, and upon its relations to the Crea-
tor, it can also answer upon all Creation ; it can
comprehend and reconstruct the order of the Uni-
verse. " To philosophize upon Nature, it is to
create Nature." Because the hypothesis springs
from the mind, and is merely tested by experiment,
he places the direct fruits of hypothesis or deductive
science above inductive science. This might be
termed a reversion to Greek natural philosophy
or methods of thought brilliant but unproductive
of fixed results.

IV.

THE EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGH-
TEENTH CENTURY.

Die Idee der Metamorphose ist eine hochst ehrwiirdige, aber zugleich hochst
gefahrliche Gabe von oben. Die fiihrt ins Formlose, zerstort das Wissen, lost es
auf. — Goethe.

Beside the philosophers between Bacon and Kant
we distinguish two other classes of evolutionists
during the latter part of the seventeenth and the
whole of the eighteenth century. These are, first,
the speculative writers from Duret to Oken, partly
philosophers, partly naturalists and of other pro-
fessions, who resuscitated some of the crude, as
well as some of the valuable scientific hypotheses of
the Greeks ; and second, the great naturalists of the
eighteenth century, who, with the philosophers, laid
the real foundations of the modern Evolution idea.

The Speculative Evolutionists.

The lists of speculative writers are not yet com-
plete. Among the curiosities of Evolution litera-
ture are included the works of Duret, the mayor of
a town in France, also of Kircher and Bonnami,
two priests. Of real interest are the speculations
of Maupertuis, a mathematician and astronomer ; of
Diderot, the political writer ; of Bonnet, the eminent
naturalist; of De Maillet, French consul at Leghorn;

1 06

SPECULATIVE EVOLUTIONISTS. 107

of Robinet, one of the popular scientists of his time;
and finally of Oken, professor of natural history in
the University of Zurich during the first third of
the present century. Some surprise may be felt at
my placing Oken in this group, for his Physio- Phi-
losophies and his ' Ur-Schleiin Theorie,' are considered
by some to raise him high as a prophet of Modern
Evolution.

Yet Oken Is a fair exponent; in his * sea-foam '
and ' spontaneous generation' vagaries we find him
drawing from such an ancient and imaginative
authority as Anaximander. In fact, when we ana-
lyze his contributions we find that they actually
represent the last survivals of Greek Evolution with
a veneer of eighteenth-century progress. When we
read him through and through we see that he is about
as truly an anachronism as old Claude Duret of
1609. .

This is more or less true of all these speculators.
They were not actually in the main Evolution
movement ; they were either out of date or upon the
side tracks of thought. They can be sharply distin-
guished from both the naturalists and philosophers
in the fact that their speculations advanced without
the support of observation, and without the least
deference to inductive canons. Several of them
were very popular writers, and unchecked specula-
tion was so much their characteristic that they
undoubtedly retarded the development of the true
Evolution idea by drawing ridicule upon all genu-

I08 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

ine search for a naturalistic explanation of the
phenomena of life.

We find them reviving Greek ideas both in the
spontaneous origin of life in different forms and
in metamorphoses and transformations, hardly less
sudden than those of Empedocles. Another source
of their authority is the highly imaginative natural
history literature of the Middle Ages. In all this
chaff there is of course some wheat, as is often the
case in speculation unhindered by observation. Lines
of suggestion coming near to modern thought upon
heredity are found especially in the essays of Mau-
pertuis, who drew from Democritus and Anaxagoras.
De Maillet outlined the theory of ' transmission of
acquired characters' in a crude form similar to that
of Empedocles. Robinet conceived Evolution on
a large scale, borrowing a mistaken interpretation of
Aristotle. Oken stated somewhat more distinctly
than had been done previously the hypothesis of the
cellular origin of life. As Bonnet was the contempo-
rary of Buffon, and Oken lived thirty years later
than Lamarck, the study of this group carries us
well beyond the period in which the sound founda-
tions of Modern Evolution were laid.

We are indebted to Ducasse and Varigny for
pointing out some of the quaint early biological lit-
erature of the seventeenth century. Claude Duret
in his Histoire Admirable des Plantes, published in
1609, is a direct transformationist. Among other
remarkable tales he describes and figures a tree, 'not.

MAILLET. lOQ

it is true, common in France, but frequently observed
in Scotland' (a country which the Mayor evidently
considered so remote that his observation would
probably not be gainsaid) ; from this tree leaves are
falling; upon one side they strike the water and
slowly transform into fishes, upon the other they
strike land and turn into birds. Father Bonnami
was another writer of similar comedies. In the
latter part of the century appeared the Muudus
Subterraneus of Father Kircher ( Amsterdam,
1678, 2 vols.) ; this is full of ' authentic observations '
of the same stamp. The worthy priest describes
orchids giving birth to birds and even to very small
men ; this occurs when they touch the ground where
a sort of fecundation occurs by the spcrmaticus
Jiumor superjluus kumo sparstis — nbi cojigressiis
Jacttis est,

Benoit de Maillet ( 1 656-1 738) did not pause
long over the dry facts within the reach of contem-
porary natural science in his famous Tclliauicd. In
his earlier years, before this book was written, we
learn that he was a careful student of Geology and
Paleontology, and that he perceived the true nature
and oriein of fossils. This in itself entitles him to
considerable credit, when we remember that at the
time there were wide differences of opinion regard-
ing fossils. Natural theology found in them proofs
of the universal Deluge, while such an acute
thinker as Voltaire, who scoffed alternately at relig-
ion and science, claimed that the shells on the

no EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

mountain-tops had been thrown aside by pilgrims
on their journeys to Rome, and that petrified
fishes were the remains of their unfinished repasts.

It was probably his readings among the Greeks,
as well as his own paleontological and geological
studies, which gave De Maillet his central hypoth-
esis that all terrestrial animals had their orimn in
marine forms by direct descent ; that birds were
derived from flying fishes, lions from sea-lions, and
man from riiomme 7narin, the husband of the mer-
maid ! De Maillet soberly collected all the narra-
tives of the mermaid, which were abundant in the
literature of that period, then reasoning that the
mermaid must have espoused, derived man from
the metamorphosis of her husband.

These extravagant ideas are mingled with the
rudiments of a principle. For De Maillet, in every
case, endeavours to explain this metamorphosis, or
transformation, by the influences of environment
and habit. The aquatic organism finds its way
upon land ; there its new surroundings of air and
herbage, and its efforts to accommodate itself, are
followed by a series of modifications. In modern
terms, ' it acquires new characters.' The rash
feature of De Maillet's views is, that he believes
these modifications take place within the short
period of a single life ; they are then transmitted
to the descendants, which do not revert to the
aquatic form. Thus, in his account of the origin
of birds, he describes flying fishes as, " driven out

MAILLET. I I I

of the water by the ardour of the chase or by pur-
suit, or carried by the wind, they might have fallen
some distance from the shore among plants, which,
while supplying them with food, prevented them
from returning to the water. Here, under the influ-
ence of the air, their anterior fins with their raised
membranes transformed into wings, barbulcs, and
feathers, the skin became covered with down, the
ventral fins became limbs, the body was remodelled,
the neck and the beak became elongated, and the
fish discovered itself a bird."

Huxley speaks as if scant justice had been done
to Maillet, but we must infer that he has not
thoroughly examined the remarkable metamorphoses
of which the above is a moderate example. St.
Hilaire more critically and justly says : —

" Quant a De Maillet, qui fait naitre les oiseaux des poissons
volants, les reptiles des poissons rampants, et les hommes des
tritons, ses reveries, en partie renouvel^es d'Anaximandre, ont
leur place marquee, non dans I'histoire de la science, mais dans
celle des aberrations de I'esprit humain."

His remarkable theories were expounded in
1749, and republished in 1756; the letters of the
title of his book reversed those of his own name, —
Telliamed, ou Efttretiens cTtui philosophc iiidioi avcc
U7i missionaire francais sur la diuiinution dc la
Mer. The argument is sustained in a dialogue
which is of a thoroughly reverent character,
De Maillet endeavouring to show that his system
conforms to the teachinojs of Genesis. He inter-

112 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

preted the days of Genesis as so many gradual
periods or epochs, holding that the first period of
life was preceded by a universal Deluge, and that
the origin of life began with the gradual recession
of the sea from the earth. Here re-enters the
favourite Greek doctrine of pre-existing germs.
These germs were predetermined as to the forms
to w^hich they should give rise, but only those forms
developed to which the gradually changing envi-
ronment was favourable. Thus, the lower forms
of life appeared while the waters were still in ex-
cess, while, as the waters receded, higher and
higher forms arose. But the scene of develop-
ment was invariably the sea; the germs gave rise
to no land forms direct, but land forms were always
developed by transformation from marine forms.
Thus, all organisms were arranged in two series :
first, the aquatic and marine, springing directly
from the germs ; and second, the terrestrial and
aerial, arising by metamorphosis from the marine.
In these transformations De Maillet was not
embarrassed by the fixity of characters or by the
fact that no such metamorphoses had ever been
witnessed. Yet, we find buried in all this fiction
tw^o suggestions of theory. De Maillet claims
for the scientist the right to search into Nature
direct for her secrets. He finds in the world proofs
that the days of Genesis were great epochs of time,
and he suggests in his metamorphoses, absurd as
they are, the idea of the modification of organisms

MAUPERTUIS. 113

by environment and habit, and the transmission of
these modifications to the descendants; in other
words, he advocates the 'transmission of acquired
characters.'

Peter Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-
1759) was a French mathematician and astronomer
of considerable reputation in his day. As one of
the most prominent members of the eighteenth-
century French circle in Berlin, he was elected
President of the Berlin Academy in 1 746.

His contributions to the Evolution idea are
pointed out by Perrier. We see in them the influ-
ence of Leibnitz, and learn that the reputation of
Maupertuis suffered from his having borrowed
other ideas of the German philosopher in a paper
which he advanced upon the Conservation of En-
ergy doctrine. In an obscure article, Systcmc de
la Nature: Essai stir la Formation des Corps Orga-
nises (1751), which has been unearthed in the
course of the present diligent search for all the
prophecies of Evolution, we find that Maupertuis
had an original theory as to the nature of living/
matter; that he advanced an hypothesis of gcneraj
tion very similar to that of Darwin, and also a
theory of the origin of new species. He did not
anticipate the ' Evolution ' or emboUemcnt of Bonnet,
but advanced an hypothesis of transformism, based
upon the idea that all material particles are in some
degree invested with the psychical properties of
the hidier orcranisms ; in other words, the monistic
I

114 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

idea. By this assumption of the investment of non-
living matter with the properties of Hving matter,
he was in a position to readily derive the latter from
the former, and to directly unite the animate and
inanimate worlds. He does not enter into detail
as to the origin of life, but carries us a step further
in his ideas of heredity, somewhat on the lines of
Democritus, and of Buffon, who had published his
similar ' theory of generation ' five years earlier
(1746).

"The elementary particles which form the embryo are each
drawn from the corresponding structure in the parent, and con-
serve a sort of recollection {soiivejiir) of their previous form,
so that in the offspring they will reflect and reproduce a resem-
blance to the parents. ... If some of the particles happen to
be missing, an imperfect being is formed ... if the elements of
the different species are united, a hybrid is produced. ... In
some cases a child resembles one of his ancestors more than even
its parents ; in this case we may suppose that the material particles
conserve more strongly the habits they possessed in the ancestral
form."

Maupertuis thus gives us a theory which resembles
both the ' Pangenesis ' of Darwin and the ' Peri-
genesis' of Haeckel.^

These principles of reproduction and heredity
enable Maupertuis to explain readily the origin of
new species, and here again w^e find a striking an-
ticipation of one modern doctrine of the cause of

1 In Haeckel's " Perigenesis of the plastidules," we have a theory of hered-
ity based upon the assumption that the material hereditary particles preserve
a power of repetition of former states analogous to that witnessed in memory.

DIDEROT.

115

fortuitous variation : We can, he says, thus readily
explain how new species are formed, . . . by sup-
posing that the elementary particles may not always
retain the order which they present in the parents,
but may fortuitously produce differences, which,
multiplying and accumulating, have resulted in the
infinite variety of species which we see at the
present time. The modifications arising from
different habits cause the varieties thus formed to
be sterile i7iter se ; thus these new species are kept
separate.

Evolution, according to this hypothesis, advances
by fortuity, by the chance combinations of hered-
itary elements which produce new characters.
Divergence is continued and fostered by physio-
logical isolation.

Denis Diderot^ (171 3-1 784) must also be ranked
as one of the speculative contributors to the theory
of the origin of species. Perrier points out that it
was an essay published in 1751 by Maupertuis,
under an assumed name, which called forth Dide-
rot's Pen sees sur L' Interpretation de la N'aturc,
published in 1754. He leaves aside the question
of the nature of inorganic material particles, and
begins his system by endowing all organic parti-
cles with a sort of rudimentary sensibility, which

1 Denis Diderot, the famous man of letters of the middle of the eighteenth
century, became an opponent of the teleological teaching of the day. He is
believed to have contributed to D'Holbach's Systhne de la Nature, which was
characterized as the Bible of Atheism. The passages quoted, however, indicate
that Diderot was a theist.

Il6 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

It

impels them to constantly change their position
in search for the most favourable position, — a
form of the attraction and repulsion doctrine of
Empedocles applied to organic particles : " The
animal," he says, " is a system of different organic
molecules, which, impelled by dim sensations simi-
lar to those of obtuse and vague touch, — sensations
which have been imparted to them by Him who
created matter in general, — have combined, until
each has found the position most suitable to its
form and to its repose. This position may be
changed by the innumerable disturbances caused
by an access of new particles which have not yet
obtained their repose."

He proceeds by asking the question, whether
plants and animals have always been what they
now are, then continuing in a spirit similar to that
of Descartes, he revives the Anaxagorean doctrine
of pre-existent germs in a modified form : —

" Even if Revelation teaches us that species left the hands of
the Creator as they now are, the philosopher who gives himself
up to conjecture comes to the conclusion that life has always had
its elements scattered in the mass of inorganic matter ; that it
finally came about that these elements united ; that the embryo
formed of this union has passed through an infinitude of organi-
zation and development ; that it has acquired, in succession, move-
ment, sensation, ideas, thought, reflection, conscience, emotions,
signs, gestures, articulation, language, laws, and finally the sciences
and arts ; that millions of years have elapsed during each of these
phases of development, and that there are still new developments
to be taken which are as yet unknown to us."

DIDEROT. r,/

The hypothesis of Diderot does not imply his
advocacy of an ' internal perfecting tendency, ' for
his particles do not arrange themselves in any pre-
determined order. It is rather a form of the Survival
of the Fittest theory applied, not to entire organisms,
but to the particles of which it is composed. Blind
and ceaseless trials, such as those imagined by Em-
pedocles, Democritus, and Lucretius, are made by
these particles, impelled by their rude sensibility.
As a sequel of many failures, finally a favourable
combination is formed, which persists until a recom-
bination is rendered necessary.

I have met another passage by Diderot, quoted in
Morley's biography (II. p. 91), which Morley (not
knowing of Empedocles' hypothesis) speaks of as an
anticipation of a famous modern theory, referring of
course to ' Natural Selection.' This is especially
valuable because it affords another conclusive proof
that the idea of the ' Survival of the Fittest ' must
actually be traced back to Empedocles, six centuries
before Christ. It is contained in an imaginary
dialogue upon the teleological view of Nature
between ' Saunderson ' and the ' Professor ' : —

" I may at least ask of you, for example, who told you — you
and Leibnitz and Clarke and Newton — that in the first instances
of the formation of animals, some were not without heads and
others without feet? I may mention . . . that all the faulty
combinations of matter disappeared, and that those individuals only
survived whose mechanism implied no important misadaptation
(contradiction), and who had the power of supporting and per-
petuating themselves."

Il8 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Charles Bonnet (i 720-1 793) was in no modern^
sense an evolutionist, although he was long known!
as such and was the author of the term. He derivedj
it from e-volvo to express his remarkable theory of
life, which was an adaptation of Leibnitz' philosophy
to embryology. The term became a 7iomen nudum
when the doctrine of ' Epigenesis ' replaced that of
' Evolution,' and was finally taken up by, and applied
as appropriate to, our modern doctrine of develop-
ment. We recall, in passing, the great and prolonged
discussions during the eighteenth and the early part
of the nineteenth century, between the ' evolution-
ist ' and ' epigenetic ' school of embryonic develop-
ment, as absorbing an immense amount of time and
energy and diverting the attention of naturalists
from the greater problem of the genesis of species.

When we examine Bonnet's ' Evolution or expan-
sion of the invisible into visibility ' and absence
of generation in the strict sense of the term, we find
it dif^cult to believe that Cuvier, and many other
eminent naturalists, were among Bonnet's support-
ers. Erasmus Darwin was among his opponents,
and we see in his Zoo7iomia a quaint criticism of
Bonnet's extravagant hypothesis : —

" Many ingenious philosophers have found so great difficulty in
conceiving the manner of reproduction in animals, that they have
supposed all the numerous progeny to have existed in miniature in
the animal originally created. This idea, besides its being unsup-
ported by any analogy we are acquainted with, ascribes a greater
continuity to organized matter than we can readily admit, . . .

BONNET. I ig

these embryons . . . must possess a greater degree of minute-
ness than that which was ascribed to the devils who tempted St.
Anthony, of whom twenty thousand were said to have been able to
dance a saraband on the point of a needle without the least incom-
moding each other."

We become more charitable in judging Bonnet as
a man of science when we learn that, befrinnin'r in
1740, while associated with Reaumur in the Univer-
sity of Geneva, he made a series of admirable obser-
vations and original discoveries, such as those upon
* parthenogenesis ' in the Aphides or Tree Lice, the
mode of reproduction in the Bryozoa, the respira-
tion of insects, and that it was the unfortunate fail-
ure of his eyesight in 1754 which turned him from
observation to speculation. His speculations were
as unsound as his observations had been sound and
valuable.

Bonnet, in 1764, published his Contemplations de
la Nature, and in 1768 his Palingenesie PJiiloso-
phique, ou idees stir Vetat passe et snr Fetat dcs Etrcs
^ivants. The latter work is dedicated "to tlie
friends of Truth and of Virtue, who are mine."

Bonnet found his inspiration in the law of Conti-
nuity of Leibnitz,- and along different lines of rea-
soning he reached the same conclusion as the great
German philosopher, that no such thing as genera-
tion, in the strict sense of the term, occurs in
Nature. Leibnitz' law of Continuity he exj^ands
into the idea that all creation forms a continuous
chain from the mineral up to the top of the animal

I20 EVOLUTIOXISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

world. In the present order of life there are no
successive acts of creation, as is generally believed
by those who attempt to adapt the discoveries, of
Palaeontology to the Mosaic account. The Uni-
verse moves on by its own internal forces, and the
whole of organic life was contained preformed in
the germs of the first beings. Life thus forms a
scale of absolutely unbroken individuals ; the vari-
eties form links from species to species; the first
term of this chain is the atom, the last is the most
elevated of cherubim ; the chain is not broken by
death, for the individual is the bearer of all future
germs. Here we find an adumbration of the
' immortality or continuity of the germ-plasm ' in
relation to the death of the individual.

Added to this law of Continuity, is an Aristote-
lian ' internal perfecting principle,' which causes
these germs to pass from the mineral to the plant,
from the plant to the animal, from the animal to
man. In these transformations. Bonnet does not
seem to have been deterred by his anatomical
knowledge, nor to have in the least degree em-
bodied the ideas of transformism which were then
being advanced by Buffon ; he believes that the
appearance of higher forms is simply the unfolding
of pre-existing germs, and not due to evolution by
modification, nor to the appearance of new lower
forms by Abiogenesis. Why does not Evolution
produce animals wholly unfit for their environ-
ment } This difficulty is met by Bonnet's assump-

ROBTXET. 121

tion that as the whole future Hfe was predetermined,
so is the whole order of the inorganic Universe.
There can, therefore, be no possibility of an animal
or plant appearing out of its proper environment.

Bonnet belonged to the cataclysmic school, be-
lieving that the globe had been the scene of great
revolutions, and that the chaos described by Moses
was the closing chapter of one of these; thus, the
Creation described in Genesis may be only a resur-
rection of animals previously existing. Bonnet
formulated his echelle or scale in a manner which
suggests, not the branching system of Lamarck,
but the continuous links of a chain in which the
higher types are simply connected with the lower
in direct continuity. It is the old scale of Aristotle
enlarged and defined by more modern terminology.

J. B. Rene Robinet (i 735-1820) was another of
the speculative group. In his two works, — Dc la
Nature, published in 1766, and Considerations Phi lo-
sophiques sur la gradation natitrclle dcs formes de
I'etre, published in 1768, — he advances a remark-
able evolutionary structure. He denies all distinc-
tion between the organic and inorganic, and reaches
an 'echelle des etres' which embraces all things.
Influenced by Leibnitz' law of Continuity, he sup-
poses that Nature has an aim or constant tendency
towards the perfection of each type ; since the
besfinningr her aim has been to produce Man, and
the higher apes appear as the last efforts of Nature
before she succeeded in making Man. It is unnec-

1

122 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

essary to add that Robinet was a daring speculator.
He claimed that one's first steps should be guided
by facts, but that beyond this, man's reason and
intelligence should not be trammelled by observa-
tion or by experiment, but should advance free
from induction.

Robinet sees in man the chef-cToeuvre of Nature.
All the variations exhibited in the lower forms of
animals, from the original prototype upwards, are to
be regarded as so many trials which Nature medi-
tates upon ; not only the orang-outang, but the
horse, the dog, even minerals and fossils, — are not^
these experiments of Nature ? But man is for the
time only the last of the series, for beings more per-
fect may replace him at any time. Robinet departs
so early from observation to hypothesis, that he may
be placed as one of the most extreme and irrational
of this group. His work, De la Nature, is one of
the greatest curiosities of natural history literature ;
-he gives a long and serious catalogue of stones and
other inorganic objects which bear accidental and
remote resemblances to the various bodily organs of
man and the lower animals. These are figured and
seriously described, together with monsters of vari-
ous kinds, and mermaids well authenticated, as some
of the early trials of Nature in the attempt to produce
man.

In one of his general principles Robinet was
sound. Like Leibnitz and unlike Bonnet and De
Maillet, he was a uniformitarian. Nature, he says.

OK EN. ^ ^

never advances by leaps. He applies this, how-
ever, to the origin of life, and says there is no break
between the organic and inorganic. The law of
Continuity applies to germs of inanimate as well
as of animate matter, — these germs are capable
of developing into every possible form; thus, all
matter is living and there is only one kincrdom —
the Animal Kingdom. The germs develop from
the simplest to the most complex, and animals thus
arising form a continuous chain of beings, of which
the first link is a prototype of the utmost simplicity.
Germs, we see, being infinitely small and placed far
beyond the reach of experimental affirmation or
denial, are the favourite field of the speculations of
all these philosophers.

There is no idea of filiation or of Evolution in the
true sense in Robinet's system of a gradual change
of a lower form into a higher; all the lower, inter-
mediate, and higher forms are held to be the direct
products of the germs of Nature. In sexual repro-
duction, for example, the two parents do not pro-
duce these germs, but are simply the bearers of
them, and generation consists merely in placing
these germs under circumstances in which they can
develop.

Lorenzo Oken ^ (1776-185 1) approached the prob-
lems of life with certain preconceived notions of
how things ought to be ; as half philosopher, half

1 Oken was born at Baden and was educated at Wurtzburg; was later Pro-
fessor in the University of Zurich.

124 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

naturalist, it is evident that most of his conclusions
were reached purely a priori. Haeckel extrava-
gantly writes in his praise that " no doctrine ap-
proaches so nearly to the natural theory of descent
as that contained in Oken's much-decried Natitr
Philosophie, " Yet in his cellular conception of
the primordial forms of life, Oken was, in part,
anticipated by Buffon, by the elder Darwin and by
Lamarck ; as has been said in his sea-slime theory,
he follows so primitive a naturalist as Anaximander ;
and in judging of his supposed anticipation of the
cell doctrine of Schleiden and Schwann, we must
keep in mind the stress that is laid throughout all
his philosophy upon the spherical form of his meta-
physical ' AIL' The skull, for example, he believed
to be one of these manifestations of the archetypal
sphere ; it is not surprising that he conceived the
cell as a sphere.

There is thus room for wide differences of opin-
ion about Oken ; his writings are such compounds
of apparent sense and actual nonsense, that only by
selecting and putting together certain favourably
read passages, can we accord him the rank Haeckel
claims for him as a prophet, whereas if we review
as a whole his elements of ' physio-philosophy,' it
appears that his prophecies of one page are capable
upon the following page of interpretation as the
vaguest speculations and absurdities. He published
his outline of the Philosophie der Natur in 1802, in
the same year in which Lamarck and Treviranus

OK EN. 125

independently outlined their theories of Biology and
Evolution. Oken's work is certainly not to be men-
tioned in the same breath with theirs, from the
modern standpoint. His work upon Generation —
DieZeugung — appeared in 1805, containing his Ur-
Schlehn ( ? protoplasm) and vesicular cell theory. His
" Manual of the Philosophy of Nature" appeared in
1809, in the same year with Lamarck's Philosophic
Zoologique ; again Oken suffers severely by com-
parison. Lamarck's is a work of science, Oken's is
a tissue of speculation. Li estimating Oken further,
we must remember that he is a follower of the school
of Schelling, and that Schelling's method was to
rapidly abandon scientific induction for deduction,
and to pass to the interpretation of Nature from a
subjective standpoint. Oken's writings show that
he was consistent in this method, and Erdmann re-
calls that Oken's conversion of the whole of philos-
ophy into the philosophy of Nature is a carrying
out of what Schelling merely touched upon.

It is the famous Ur-Schleim doctrine, in whicli
Oken's admirers read notions of the original proto- 1
plasmic and cellular basis of all life, and in which
it is said he saw the fundamental substance out of
which by differentiation life has arisen.^ " Every J
organic thing has arisen out of slime, and is noth-
ing but slime in different forms. This primitive
slime originated in the sea, from inorganic matter,

1 These quotations are from Tulk's translation, the Elements of Physio-
philosophy, published in 1847.

126 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY,

in the course of planetary evolution. The origin
of life [geiieralio originaria) occurred upon the
shores, where water, air, and earth were joined."
The Ur-Schleim assumed the form of microscopi-
cally minute bladders, and Nature has for its unit
an infinity of these. Each of these bladders has
an outer dense envelope and a fluid internal con-
tent. This ' infusorium,' as he calls it, has the form
of a sphere, and is developed in the following man-
ner: it is first an aggregate of an almost infinite
number of organic points; as the result of the oxy-
dizing process, the original fluid form is replaced
by a vesicle with a flowing interior and firm periph-
ery ; in this are united the three life processes
of feeding, digestion, and respiration. The whole
organic world consists of infusoria, and both plants
and animals are simply its modifications.

Generation, according to Oken, is the synthesis
or bringing together of organic spheres ; as with
Robinet, it is the synthesis of germs, and with
Maupertuis and Diderot, the synthesis of particles.
Like the Greeks, Oken imagined that the combina-
tion of these infinitely numerous mucous points
or infusoria, composed of carbon mixed in equal
quantities with water and air, found its most favour-
able conditions at the junction of sea and land.
*' All life," he says, "is from the sea; the whole sea
is alive. Love arose out of sea-foam." In one
passage, he says : " If new individuals originate,
they could not originate directly from others, but

OKEN,

127

they must be resolved into the Ur-ScJilcim:' A
few pages further on he offers his hypothesis of the
origin of man, which is entirely inconsistent with
any form of cell doctrine, when he says: " Man also
is the offspring of some warm and gentle seashore,
and probably rose in India, where the first peaks
appeared above the waters. A certain mingling of
water, of blood warmth, and of atmosphere, must
have conjoined for his production ; and this may
have happened only once and at one spot." When
we consider that this was allowed to stand in a
work translated in 1847, long after Buffon's, E. Dar-
win's, and Lamarck's speculations upon the origin
of man had been published, it shows that Oken was
not only a Greek survival as a thinker, but that he
entirely ignored the contemporary progress of sci-
ence in France and England. In another passage
he says, entirely oblivious as well of his Ur-Schlcim
as of his previous statements : " Man has not been '
created, but developed, so the Bible itself teaches
us. God did not make man out of nothing, but took
an elemental body then existing — an earth-clod or
carbon; moulded it into form, thus making use of
water; and breathed into it life — namely, air —
whereby galvanism or the vital process arose."

128 evolutionists of the eighteenth century.

The Great Naturalists.

The first of the great naturalists, Linnaeus and
Buffon, were born, only four days apart, early in
the eighteenth century, or eighty-one years after
the death of Bacon.

In the environment of the idea of Evolution,
LiNN^us (i 707-1 778) may be considered not as a
positive but as one of the negative factors, as founding
the ' school of facts ' of which Cuvier was later the dis-
tinguished leader. Linnaeus had been preceded as
a systematist by Wotton in 1552, one of the last of
the Aristotelian zoologists ; by Gessner of the same
period, and one of the first zoologists who shook off
the traditions of Aristotle; by Aldrovandi in 1599;
by Sperling in 1661 ; and by Ray, who first clearly
pointed out the two criteria of a species, as per-
manence of form and appearance, and non-fertility
with other species. Ray was followed by a number
of dry, descriptive writers, who worked upon the
larger groups of animals and plants. Finally the
turning-point to modern Zoology and Botany was
marked by the great work of Linnaeus, the Systema
NaturcE, The binary system of nomenclature
therein proposed was a mere tool for the expression
of his broad conceptions of the relation of animals
and plants to each other. Species were in his
mind the units of direct Creation ; each species bore
the impression of the thought of the Creator, not
only in its external form but in its anatomical struc-

LINN^US. I2Q

ture, its faculties, its functions; and the end of
classification was to consider all these facts and to
arrange animals in a natural system accordin^r
to their greater or less likeness.

Linnaeus thus took a broad view of the true
basis of classification upon general structure, a
view which was expanded and developed by Cuvier.
As Perrier observes in his admirable critique of
Linnaeus, he adopted the aphorism of Leibnitz
iiatura no7i facit saltum ; to him every species was
exactly intermediate between two others: "We
reckon as many species as issued in pairs from the
hands of the Creator." These were his earlier views
in all his writings between 1735 and 1751, in which
the sentence nullce specice uovcb recurs, expressing
his idea of the absolute fixity of species from the
period of their creation as described in Genesis, the
only change being that of the extension in numbers,
not of variation in kind. Yet Linnaeus was too
close an observer to continue to hold this idea of
absolute fixity, and in 1762 we find his views had
somewhat altered, and this is of particular interest
because of the hypothesis which he advanced to
explain the origin of new species: " All the species
of one genus constituted at first (that is, at the
Creation) one species, ab initio iduxdi coustitucriiit
speciem ; they were subsequently multiplied by
hybrid generation, that is, by intercrossing with
other species." He was thus inclined to admit a
great increase of species, more or less recent

130 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

in origin, arising by hybridity, and losing their
perfection of type. He elsewhere suggested that
defeneration was the result of the influences of
climate or environment.

In the last and thoroughly revised edition of the
Systema Natures, which appeared in 1766, we no
longer find this fundamental proposition of his
earlier works, nullce specice novce. This change of
view was, however, of a very mild character in com-
parison with the very radical views as to the muta-
bility of species which Buffon was expressing about
the same time. The influence of Linnaeus w^as
vast; far greater than that of Buffon among his
contemporaries. The two men were compared to
the disadvantage of the latter, and Buffon has been
charged with jealousy of the great Swede. The
reason why the works of Linnaeus were more influ-
ential is obvious ; his system was adapted to the
general state of knowledge in his day, while the
ideas of Buffon were in advance of his day, and
incapable of proof in the existing stage of knowledge.

George Louis Leclerc Buffon (i 707-1 788)
may be called the naturalist founder of the modern
applied form of the Evolution theory. It is true
that his conception of the range of Evolution
changed during three periods of his life ; that it is
difficult to Qfather from his conflictino^ statements
exactly what his opinions were, yet he laid the basis
of modern Evolution in Zoology and Botany. We
claim this for him, because he first pointed out, on

BUFF ON.

131

a broad scale, the mutability of species in relation
to changes of environment. Moreover, he ad-
vanced beyond the Greek and philosophical evohi-
tionists, in first working out a definite theory of
the causes of mutability. His writings, which
cover the widest range of subjects, from Cosmogony
down to some of the minutiae of Zoology, undoubt-
edly exercised a great influence in England and in
Europe. He sowed the seed of suggestion in some
passages, which, it is true, were mostly speculative,
and these seeds germinated in the minds of the
later German Natural Philosophers, and among
Buffon's contemporary naturalists, while ripening
and bearing fruit in his successor, Lamarck, and
others, both in France and England. Buffon's
suggestiveness was one of his chief merits. It
sprang from an imagination which Diderot eulo-
gized : " Heureux le philosophe systematique a qui
la Nature aura donne comme autrefois a Epicure,
a Lucrece, a Aristote, a Platon, une imagination
forte. . . ." This imagination made and unmade
Buffon, for it touched alike his soundest and
unsoundest speculations.

In his early period Buffon shared the views of
Linnaeus, his contemporary, and it is interesting to
contrast these two great men, — one the founder of
the view of Classification as a fixed system of the
divine order of things, and the 71c plus ultra of
Botany and Zoology — the other the founder of
the directly opposed view of Classification as an

132 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

invention of man, and of the laws governing the
relations of animals and their environment as the
chief end of science. In an early edition of Buf-
fon's Histoire Nahirelle, we find him using almost
the exact words of Linnaeus : " In animals, species
are separated by a gap which Nature cannot bridge
over. . . . We see him, the Creator, dictating his
simple but beautiful laws and impressing upon each
species its immutable characters."

Krause points out that as early as 1755 {Histoire
Naturelle, tome v. pp. 103, 104) Buffon found in
comparative anatomy many difficulties in the Spe-
cial Creation theory. " The pig," he says, " does not
appear to have been formed upon an original,
special, and perfect plan, since it is a compound of
other animals ; it has evidently useless parts, or
rather parts of which it cannot make any use, toes
all the bones of which are perfectly formed, and
which, nevertheless, are of no service to it. Nature
is far from subjecting herself to final causes in the
formation of her creatures." In always looking for
a purpose or design in every part, he continues,
" We fail to see that we thus deprive philosophy
of its true character, and misrepresent its object,
which consists in the knowledge of the ' how ' of
things, the way in which Nature acts. . . ." This
thought was reiterated by Goethe.

In 1 76 1 we find that he had advanced to a belief
in the frequent mutability of species : " How many
species, being (' denaturees ') perfected or degenerated

BUFF ON. 133

by the great changes in land and sea, by the favours
or disfavours of Nature, by food, by the prolon^^cd
influences of climate, contrary or favourable, arc no
longer what they formerly were'' Again he says:
" One is surprised at the rapidity with which species
vary, and the facility with which they lose their
primitive characteristics in assuming new forms."

We are tempted to translate the term ' daia-
titrees' by our modern term 'evolved,' since, as we
see above, Buffon embraced in it the two modern
ideas of development {' perfectionnemcnt') and de-
generation i!^ degmeration'). But this would convey
a broader conception than seems to have been at
any time in his mind ; for, by the express use of
' ^(^/^(^^//r^^i-,' he gives us an insight into the limits
of his conception. He could not wholly shake off
the idea that each species was originally a special
type, as impressed by the Creator, containing some
ineffaceable and permanent characters, and tliat
variation consisted in the departure from these
natural and original characters. Thus he was
deeply impressed with the fixity of type impression
among the larger animals, such as the quadru])cds,
believing them to be comparatively invariable.
Throughout Buffon's writings we find this waver-
inor between the science of Genesis and the evidence
of zoology. It is sometimes expressed in i)ara-
graphs which closely follow one another, wlierein it
is difficult to decide whether Buffon is ironical or
not. Referrinor, in one instance, to his idea of unity

134 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

of type, he seems to indicate that, in creating ani-
mals, the Supreme Being only employed a single
idea, and at the same time varied it in every possi-
ble manner ; passing on to the unity of type which
pervades certain families, he says, in effect : If we
reason out this matter, we find that the fundamen-
tal idea of the family is community of origin for the
man and the ape, as well as for the horse and the
ass. The ass is a degenerate horse ; the ape is a
degenerate man. In carrying this back to its logi-
cal extreme, w^e are forced to admit that these
animals sprang from a common source, — from one
animal, which, in the succession of time, has pro-
duced by perfecting itself {se perfectioniiant), and
by degeneration, all the races of other animals.
But no, he continues (whether seriously or not it is
hard to say), it is certain by Revelation that all
animals have shared the benefits of direct creation,
and have issued, completely formed, pair by pair,
from the hands of the Creator.

"... Mais non : il est certain, par la revelation, que tous les
animaux ont ^galement participe a la grace de la creation ; que
les deux premiers de chaque espece, et de toutes les especes, sont
sortis tout formes des mains du Cr^ateur ; et Ton doit croire qu'ils
etaient tels a peu pres qu'ils nous sont aujourd'hui representes
par leurs descendants."

It is this wavering of opinion and this change
from earlier to later views which has led different
writers to hold such widely different opinions as to
Buffon's share in the development of the Evolution

BUFF ON. ,3^

' idea. M. de Lanessan claims for him tlie position
which is usually accorded to Lamarck ; and, on the
other hand, other writers, such as Isidore St. Hilaire
and Haeckel, assign him a much less important
position. St. Hilaire shows clearly that his opin-
ions marked three periods. Quatrefages hardly
realizes the great influence exerted by the writings
of Buffon's middle period, when his views were
most extreme. Lanessan, his greatest admirer, be-
lieves that he has anticipated not only Lamarck in
his conception of the action of environment, but
Darwin in the struggle for existence and Survival
of the Fittest. There is no doubt that in some
passages Buffon doubted not only the fixity, but
even the reality of species, genera, families, and
other taxonomic divisions ; also that he wrote of
the chain of organic life from the zoophytes to the
monkeys and man, thus borrowing from Aristotle
and suggestive of Bonnet and his famous scale.

Buffon's ideas regarding the physical basis of
heredity are very similar to those of Democritus,
and certainly contain the basis of the conception
of the Pangenesis theory of Darwin, for he supposes
that the elements of the germ-cells were gathered
from all parts of the body. He does not expressly
speak of the transmission of acquired characters as
a logical part of his theory of heredity, but such
transmission was undoubtedly in his mind, although
not clearly formulated as by Lamarck.

He illustrates the direct influences of environ-

136 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

ment in the changes observed in the different races
of men as connected with differences of cHmate.
He carefully traces the modifications which are due
to the domestication of various wild animals. He
speaks of the formation of new varieties of animals
by artificial selection, and shows that similar results
may be produced in Nature by geographical migra-
tion, thus having in mind the ' segregation ' law^
later developed by Wagner.

The struggle for existence, the elimination of the
least-perfected species, the contest between the
fecundity of certain species and their constant
destruction, are all clearly expressed in various pas-
sages. Thus we find Buffon anticipating Malthus ^
in the following passage : —

" Le cours ordinaire de la nature vivante, est en g^n^ral toujours
constant, toujours le meme ; son mouvement, toujours regulier,
roule sur deux points inebranlables : Pun, la fecondite sans bornes
donn^e a toutes les especes ; I'autre, les obstacles sans nombre
qui r^duisent cette fecondite a une mesure d^tcrmin^e et ne lais-
sent en tout temps qu'a peu pres la meme quantity d'individus de
chaque espece."

Again, his idea of the elimination of the least-
perfected species is shown in the following passage,
also quoted by De Lanessan : —

" Les especes les moins parfaites, les plus d^licates, les plus
pesantes, les moins agissantes, les moins armies, etc., ont deja dis-
paru or disparaitront."

1 Thomas Robert Malthus (i 766-1 834) published his famous work, An
Essay ott the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of
Society, in 1798, while Buffon made the last addition to his Histoire N^aturelle
in 1789. As another instance of continuity it is interesting to recall the obli-
gation Darwin expresses to Malthus.

BUFFON.

^17

Buffon not only saw the negative influences of
environment in the reduction of numbers and in
the reduction of imperfect types, but also its posi-
tive action in the production of new characters, and
here we come upon the third and main feature of
what may be called his theory of the factors of Evo-
lution ; namely, the direct action of environment in
the modification of the structure of animals and ,
plants and the conservation of these modifications
through heredity. He applied this factor to the
origin of new species in the New World of Amer-
ica. It is amusing to the modern zoologist to note
that Buffon, in common with all his contemporaries,
always conceived of the New World as not only
new in point of discovery, but as new in its zoologi-
cal evolution. He illustrated his ideas as to the
direct action of environment in saying that Old-
World types, finding their way into the New World,
would there undergo modifications sufficient to cause
us to regard them as new species; and in this con-
nection Buffon expresses the uniformitarian idea
which Lamarck carried to such an extreme (which
was opposed to his general cataclysmal teaching,
that Nature is in a continual state of transition) ;
namely, that man must consider and observe
changes which are going on in his own period \w
order to understand what has gone on in the past,
and what will happen in the future.

It is with such passages as these that r)uffon
inspired later writers to consider the great problem.

138 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

He may be said to have asked all the questions
which were to be answered in the course of the
succeeding century. It is in this suggestiveness
that we find his chief merits. As St. Hilaire says^
his glory lies in what he prepared for his successors,
in his creation of a philosophy of Comparative
Zoology, his views of community of origin, laws of
geographical distribution, extinction of old species,
and successive apparition of new species. In order
to be fair to Buffon's followers, we must further test
the breadth of his conception by his application of
it to the succession of life ; and we here find in
numerous passages, as pointed out by Quatrefages,
that his conception was very limited.

After having maintained in his first period the
extreme Special Creation view, and in his second
period, especially between 1761 and 1766, the
extreme transmutation view, he returned finallv
to the moderate view, that species were neither
fixed nor mutable, but that specific types could
assume a great variety of forms.

In his theory of Evolution, considering tempera-
ture, climate, food, and capillarity as the three
causes of change, alteration, and degeneration of
animals, he does not employ the terms heredity or
transmission of acquired characters, although it is
evident that these factors are implied. In other
words, Quatrefages points out, Buffon did not follow
his theory into its details.

He also failed to reach the phyletic or branching

J

^> -

ERASMUS DARWIN. 130

idea of Evolution. He expressly says that the re-
lations of species furnish a problem beyond our
reach : —

" Nous ne pourrions nous prononcer plus affirmativement si les
limites qui s^parent les especes, ou la chaine qui les unit, nous
^taient mieux connues ; mais qui peut avoir suivi la grande filia-
tion de toutes les genealogies dans la nature ? II faut etre n^ avec
elle et avoir pour ainsi dire, des observations contemporaines."

Buff on thus left untouched many problems for
his successors, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and
Goethe.

Erasmus Darwin (i 731-1802), grandfather of
the great naturalist, is one of the most interesting
figures in our present history. In his volumes of
verse we find that he is one of the poets of the Evo-
lution idea, following Empedocles and Lucretius,
and followed by the greater poet Goethe. In the
Temple of N attire, published after his death, in the
year 1802 memorable for coincidences, he gives in
poetical form the ideas which had matured during
the last ten years of his life. His earlier writings
were the Botanic Garden and Loves of the Plants,
two volumes of verse completed and publislied
about 1788, and his Zoononiia, a large medico-
philosophical w^ork published in 1794.

We owe to Dr. Ernst Krause a careful study of
the works of Erasmus Darwin, originally published
in Kosmos, and subsequently republished in I^ig-
lish, with a biography of Erasmus Darwin written

140 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

by Charles Darwin. Krause has selected from the
Temple of Nature many verses showing Dr. Dar-
win's views of Evolution, and opening with his
belief in the Greek doctrine of the spontaneous
orimn of life, which we have seen revived during
the eighteenth century in so many extravagant
forms, but which Dr. Darwin restricts to the lowest
organisms :

" Hence without parents, by spontaneous birth,
Rise the first specks of animated earth.

• * • * . * • •

Organic Ufe beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves ;
First, forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass ;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume ;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing."

Then, in the transition from sea to dry land,
came the amphibious, and finally the terrestrial
forms of life. Gradually new powers are acquired.
In these metamorphoses. Dr. Darwin does not re-
vive the fancies of such writers as De Maillet, but
illustrates his views by changes such as those seen
in the development from the tadpole to the frog.
Passing on, he speaks of cross-fertilization, and
finally reaches the origin of Man. We here find
a very interesting section. Dr. Darwin quotes
Buffon and Helvetius to the effect that many fea-

ERASMUS DARWIN. I41

tures in the anatomy of man point to a former
quadrupedal position, and indicate that he is not
yet fully adapted to the erect position ; that, fur-
ther, Man may have arisen from a single family of
monkeys (we here suppose the family is used in the
ordinary sense), in which, accidentally, the opposing
muscle brought the thumb against the tips of the
fingers, and that this muscle gradually increased in
size by use in successive generations.^ Thus, Dar-
win calls our attention to Buffon's anticipation of
the Natural Selection idea as applied to man, in
the survival of an accidental variation in a muscle
of the greatest importance in the history of man.
Dr. Darwin devotes a whole canto to the human
hand.

" The hand, first gift of Heaven ! to man belongs ;
Untipt with claws, the circling fingers close,
With rival points the bending thumbs oppose,
Trace the nice fines of Form with sense refined,
And clear ideas charm the thinking mind."

He passes on to outline the development of the hu-
man faculties. Later he describes the fierce struggle
for existence, in verses which remind us of Tenny-
son's lines upon Nature, red in tooth and claw.
Not only do animals destroy each other and plants,

^ This recalls the modern parody : —

" There was an ape in days that were earlier;
Centuries passed and his hair became curlier;
Centuries more and his thumb gave a twist,
And he was a man and a Positivist."

142 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

but even the plants struggle among themselves for
soil, moisture, air, and light, and he connects this
with the idea which we have already seen expressed
by Buffon and Malthus, that this struggle checks
the naturally rapid increase of life, and thus is ad-
vantaoreous and beneficial in the end. As Dr.
Krause points out, Darwin just misses the connec-
tion between this struggle and the Survival of the
Fittest.

These passages show that Dr. Darwin was at the
last — that is in his latest writings — a firm evolution-
ist, and that he had advanced considerably beyond
the tentative views expressed many years before in
the Zoonomia and Botanic Garden. Krause, in his ad-
mirable biography, does not, however, give Darwin's
predecessors sufficient credit ; his ideas, it is true,
were largely gathered from his own notes as a phy-
sician and as a lifelong observer of Nature, but they
indicate also a very careful reading of Leibnitz, as
in his allusion to the change of genera in the Am-
monites ; to Buffon, as in ideas connected with the
struggle for existence and variations under artificial
selection ; to Linn^us, Blumenthal, and others.
As to the origin of life, he drew from the Greeks,
especially from Aristotle, limiting spontaneous gen-
eration, however, to the lowest organisms ; they also
gave him the fundamental idea of Evolution, for he
says, " This idea of the gradual formation and im-
provement of the Animal world seems not to have
been unknown to the ancient philosophers." His

ERASMUS DARWIN. 1 43

general philosophy of Nature, as under the opera-
tion of natural laws rather than of the supernatural,
he himself in the Zoonomia attributes to David
Hume.

Dr. Darwin's theory of the causes of Evolution
was not similar to Buffon's, for he nowhere lays
stress upon the modifications induced by the direct
action of Environment; on the other hand, he be-
lieved that modifications spring from within by the
reactions of the organism ; thus he fully anticipated
what is now known as the Lamarckian theory, and
extended it even further than Lamarck, since he en-
dowed plants with sensibility and attributed their
evolution to their own efforts towards the attain-
ment of certain structures. His view of the oriirin
of adaptations or of design in Nature was thor-
oughly naturalistic, believing that adaptations had
not been specially created, but that they had been
naturally and gradually acquired by powers of de-
velopment planted within the original organisms by
the Creator.

In a defence of Lamarck's originality, Ouatrc-
fages mistakenly attributes to Dr. Darwin the theory
of an 'inherent perfecting tendency'; but this we
find is an entire misconception. Let us, therefore,
carefully examine Dr. Darwin's theory as expounded
in the chapter ' Generation ' of the Zoonomia. \\\
this chapter he combats Bonnets doctrine of
emboitemeiit, and defends the idea of individual
development by successive additions of parts to the

144 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

embryo. In the original formation of the embryo
he rejects the Pangenesis theory of Buffon, that is,
of the conjugation of Hke parts from the two par-
ents. " These organic particles, he (Mr. Buffon)
supposes to exist in the spermatic fluids of both
sexes, and that they are derived thither from every
part of the body, and must therefore resemble, as he
supposes, the parts from whence they are derived."
He substitutes for this a theory of his own, of the
addition of parts, which takes little account of the
laws of heredity.

The individual life begins, as all life originally be-
gan, from a single filament. " Shall we conjecture,"
he says, "that one and the same kind of living fila-
ment is and has been the cause of all orofanic life t
. . . I suppose this living filament, of whatever
form it may be, whether sphere, cube, or cylinder, to
be endowed with the capability of being excited into
action by certain kinds of stimulus." This irrita-
bility and excitability is the first step in Darwin's
conception of Evolution. • It is that whereby ani-
mals and plants react to their environment, causingi
changes in their own structure, and these changes
are transmitted to their offspring.

In this chapter upon Generation, he throws out
a wealth of suggestion and inquiry which indicates
a thorough appreciation of the problems which
were yet to be solved, as well as of the broadest
aspects of Evolution. He touches upon Embry-
ology, Comparative Anatomy, the Colouring of

ERASMUS DARWIN.

145

Animals, Artificial Selection, and treats Environ-
ment almost in its broadest sense. We may briefly
follow the outline of his argument for Evolution in
the Zoo7iomia. He says : —

" When we revolve in our minds the metamorphoses of ani-
mals, as from the tadpole to the frog ; secondly, the changes
produced by artificial cultivation, as in the breeds of horses, dogs,
and sheep ; thirdly, the changes produced by conditions of climate
and of season, as in the sheep of warm climates being covered
with hair instead of wool, and the hares and partridges of northern
climates becoming white in winter : when, further, we observe
the changes of structure produced by habit, as seen especially in
men of different occupations ; or the changes produced by artifi-
cial mutilation and prenatal influences, as in the crossing of
species and production of monsters ; fourth, when we obser\'e the
essential unity of plan in all warm-blooded animals, — we are led to
conclude that they have been alike produced from a similar living
filament."

Havinof thus discussed some of the most obvious
arguments for mutability, he proceeds to speculate
upon the causes of these changes. " Fifthly," he
says, " all animals undergo transformations which
are in part produced by their own exertions, in re-
sponse to pleasures and pains, and many of these
acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to
their posterity T

This, so far as I know, is the first clear and
definite statement of the theory of the transmission
of acquired characters considered as one of the fac-
tors of Evolution. We will now continue to ex-
amine Darwin's argument, and later will illustrate

146 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

his application of his theory. He proceeds to dis-
cuss the wants of animals, arranging them first
under the head of sexual characters, as horns,
spurs, developed for purposes of combat and pro-
curing the females. Thus, the horns of the stag
have not been developed to protect him from the
boar, but from other stags. He here misses the
idea of the sexual selection of the horns developed
as ornaments to the male. Other organs, he says,
are developed in the search for food. Cattle have
acquired rough tongues to pull off the blades of
grass ; and of these and similar organs he says :
" All which seem to have been gradually pro-
duced during many generations, by the perpetual
endeavour of the creatures to supply the want of
food, and to have been delivered to their posterity
with constant improvements for the purpose re-
quired." Again he says : " There are organs devel-
oped for protective purposes, diversifying both the
form and colour of the body for concealment and for
combat." He here definitely unfolds the idea of
protective colouring.

He closes his long argument by pointing out the
close gradations in Nature from the higher to the
lower forms, and the substantial similarity between
the animal and vegetable kingdoms in their modes
of generation or reproduction, and concludes as
follows : —

" From thus meditating upon the minute portion of time in
which many of the above changes have been produced, would it

ERASMUS DARWIN. I .-r

be too bold to imagine, in the great length of time since the
earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the com-
mencement of the history of mankind, that all warm-blooded ani-
mals have arisen from one living filament, which the first great
Cause imbued with animality, with the power of acciuiring new
parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sen-
sations, volitions, and associations, and thus possessing the faculty
of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of de-
livering down those improvements by generation to posterity, world
without end ? "

We must remember in reading this sentence that
by generation Darwin means inheritance, heredity
being a term which was introduced much later. If
we analyze this sentence, we see that it involves,
first, a clear idea of the evolution of all forms of
life from a single filament or minute organic mass,
as we should express it to-day, — a minute mass of
protoplasm; second, that this evolution has occu-
pied millions of years and has been controlled not
by supernatural causes but by natural causes. The
directing power to which he alludes has sprung
from its efforts to meet its new needs in course of
its changing environment. For it is clear from the
context that by the term 'inherent activity,' Dar-
win does not allude to an automatic perfecting prin-
ciple such as we find originated with Aristotle, but
that the power of improvement rests with the ani-
mal's own efforts, the effects of these efforts u])on
the body being transmitted. Darwin seems to feel
that he may be charged with irreverence in thus
substitutino: the idea of Evolution for that of Spec-

148 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

ial Creation ; he meets this by establishing his
hypothesis upon a basis of natural causation or
secondary causes, and says : —

"For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to require a
greater infinity or power to cause the causes of effects, than to
cause the effects themselves ; that is, to estabUsh the laws of Cre-
ation rather than to directly create."

There are many single passages which further
illustrate Darwin's ideas. It is first, perfectly clear ^
that he derives all forms of life from a single fila-
ment, which we may translate into a single proto-
plasmic mass. Upon this, however, he does not
build a branching or phyletic system of Evolution,
but simply leaves this part of the system out, and
passes on to illustrations of the causes and laws of
Evolution. As pointed out above, his fundamental
idea is what has since been called ' Archaesthetism '
by Cope. According to this, growth is stimulated
by irritability and sensibility, or in Darwin's lan-
guage— in the passage upwards from the original
filament.: " The most essential parts of the system
are first formed by the irritations (of hunger, thirst,
etc., above mentioned) and by the pleasurable sen-
sations attending those irritations, and by exertions
in consequence of painful sensations, similar to
those of hunger and suffocation. ... In confir-
mation of these ideas, it may be observed that all
parts of the body endeavour to grow or to make
additional parts of themselves throughout our lives."
{Zoo7iomia^ XXXIX. 3.)

ERASMUS DARWIN. I^q

I have carefully searched for these passages, and
find a most striking confirmation of Charles Dar-
win's well-known sentence: "It is curious how
largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, antic-
ipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion
of Lamarck in his Zoono7niar Among the pas-
sages above quoted, and in those following, we find
the whole framework and even in part the very
language of Lamarck's Four Laws.

Dr. Darwin again illustrates his theory, speaking
of the Evolution of Man : —

"Now as labour strengthens the muscles employed and in-
creases their bulk, it would seem that a few generations of labour
or indolence may in this respect change the form and tempera-
ment of the body." {Zoonomia, pp. 356, 501.) "Add to these
the various changes produced in the forms of mankind by their
early modes of exertion . . . which became hereditary."

On the following page he applies the law of
transmission of acquired characters to the lower
animals. After speaking of the snout of the pig,
the trunk of the elephant, the rough tongues of
cattle, and beaks of birds, he says : —

" All which seem to have been gradually produced during many
generations by the perpetual endeavour of the creatures to supply
the want of food, and to have been delivered to their posterity
with constant improvement of them for the purposes acquired."

As regards the origin of plants, he at one point
mentions the suggestion of Linna:us: "And that
from thence, as Linnaeus has conjectured in respect

150 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

to the vegetable world, it is not impossible but the
great variety of species of animals which now ten-
ant the earth, may have had their origin from the
mixture of a few natural orders." Elsewhere he
speaks of plants as having arisen in the contest for
light and air. He carries the idea of sensibility and
irritability into plant life, and his theory of plant
evolution is similar to that of animal evolution.

Erasmus Darwin was, however, fully conscious
of the limitations of his theory of Evolution ; for in
speaking of protective colouring (p. 510), he says:
" The final cause of these colours is readily under-
stood, as they serve some purpose of the animal, but
the efficient cause would seem almost beyond con-
jecture." The same question we have seen pro-
pounded by Kant at about the same period : " How
can purposeful forms of organization arise without
a purposeful working cause } How can a work full
of design build itself up without a design and with-
out a builder } " Of course we do not know whether
Darwin had this suggested to him by Kant, but it
is exceedingly interesting to see him so clearly state
the old, old problem which his grandson later largely
solved.

While this chapter on Generation is a compara-
tively small part of the Zooiiomia, we learn that it
attracted much attention at the time. Dr. McCosh
tells the writer that he read the work while in Edin-
burgh. It made a considerable sensation, and was
replied to by Thomas Brown, M.D. This reply,

ERASMUS DARWIN. I51

together with his article upon " Cause and Effect,"
won for Dr. Brown the professorship of Moral Phi-
losophy in the University. We see, therefore, that
in England, as we shall see in France, the adherents
of the Evolution doctrine found the spirit of the
Universities hostile; and as we pass from man to
man in these outlines of the Evolution idea, select-
ing certain paragraphs and ignoring all the contem-
porary literature, we must not lose sight of the fact
that the major weight of opinion was, throughout
all this period, upon the side of Special Creation.
For one argument like Dr. Darwin's upon the
gradual development side, there were hundreds
upon the side of sudden production.

V.

FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

Ainsi, la ?tature, toujours agissante, toujours impassible, renouvelant et vari-
ant toute espece de corps, n'en preservant aucun de la destruction, nous offre une
scene imposante et sans terme, et nous montre en elle une puissance particuliere
qui n'agit que par necessite. — LAMARCK.

We have now come to an important step in the
history of the Evolution theory ; that is, the rela-
tion of Erasmus Darwin to Lamarck. We shall see,
in treating Lamarck, that the parallelism between
the line of reasoning of these two men is very strik-
ing. They not only used the same illustrations, but
almost the same language ; and by putting together
various passages from Darwin's writings, we can re-
construct, almost verbatim, the four principles of
Lamarck. Darwin's work was published in 1794
while as Huxley points out, in his Recherches sur
Ics causes des principaux fails physiques, written in
I 776, but not published until 1 794, Lamarck adopted
Buffon's maturer and more conservative views, as
shown in the following sentence : —

All the individuals of this nature are derived from similar indi-
viduals, which altogether constitute the entire species. ... If
there exist many varieties produced by the action of environment,
these varieties do not degenerate to the point of forming new
species. . . .

It was not until 1801, seven years after the publi-
cation of the Zoono7nia, that Lamarck published his

152

E. DARWIN AND LAMARCK. \Z

:)j

theory of the mutabiHty of species, and this theory
had two main features, namely, that animals were
evolved, not, as Buffon supposed, by the direct exter-
nal action of environment, but by environment acting
upon internal structure through the nervous svstcm,
and by the transmission of the modifications thus
produced. As regards the origin of plants, Lamarck
believed with Buffon, that they were evolved bv the
direct action of environment. Lamarck nowhere
makes any allusion to the Zoonomia, and De Lanes-
san has pointed out that he also pays a very scant
tribute to Buffon, while there is the strongest inter-
nal evidence that Lamarck was largely influenced
by the writings of Buffon's second period.

How shall we explain this coincidence or appar-
ent plagiarism .f* We must adopt one of two alter-
natives. One is, as later in the famous and quite
as closely parallel Wallace-Darwin case, that both
naturalists arrived independently at the same con-
clusions, influenced alike by the writings of Linnanis
and Buffon and by their own observations uj)()n
Nature ; or, we must suppose that Lamarck bor-
rowed freely from Darwin without giving him credit.
We should hesitate before adopting the latter alter-
native, when we consider that the interchange of
thouo-ht between the two countries was not as
constant as at present, also that Dr. Darwin's views
were buried rather obscurely in a great quarto
mainly devoted to medicine, and in two long didac-
tic poems. Again, wemust note that Geoffroy St-

154 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

Hilaire, while crediting Goethe, Buffon, and others
with having partly anticipated Lamarck, and giving
a very complete bibliographical description of the
subject, nowhere mentions Erasmus Darwin. It
does not seem probable that Darwin's work could
have been used by Lamarck, and have remained
wholly unknown to St. Hilaire. The dates and the
points of internal evidence still seem to justify
the suggestion of Charles Darwin, and the very
strong suspicion of Dr. Krause, that Lamarck was
familiar with the Zoo7tomia, and made use of it in
the development of his theory.

M. Ch. Martins, the biographer of Lamarck,
calls attention to the fact that Laplace supported
Lamarck in the doctrine of the inheritance of ac-
quired habits, as applied to the origin of the mental
faculties of man ; and in the passages quoted by
Martins to sustain this point, we have evidence that
both Laplace and Lamarck anticipated Spencer.
We have seen that the general doctrine of transmis-
sion of acquired characters was an old one. It had
been expressed in France by others, by De Maillet,
for example. The most important testimony in
favour of Lamarck's originality is his own. It is in
a very striking passage in the introduction of the
last edition of his Aimnaux sans Verfebres (p. 2).
This was Lamarck's latest work. He says: —

" I set forth my general theory. It deserves close attention ;
and as far as possible, men should determine how far I am well
founded in all that I have written. I have, in fact, advanced a

E. DARWIN AND LAMARCK.

155

general theory upon the origin of Hfe and upon its modes of mani-
festation, upon the origin of the faculties, upon the variations and
phenomena of organization of different animals, — a theory con-
sistent in its principles and applicable to all cases. // is the first,
so it seems to me, which has been presented, the ojily theory, there-
fore, which exists, because I do not know any work which offers
another theory based upon such a large number of principles and
considerations. This theory of mine recognizes in Nature the
power to produce some result, in fact, all the results we see. Is
it well established? Certainly, it seems to me so; and all my
observations tend to confirm it. Otherwise I would not publish
it. It rests with those who do not accept it to substitute another,
with equally wide appHcation, or with a still wider application to
the facts. But this I hardly believe to be possible."

Upon this sentence it seems that we have satis-
factory evidence that Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck
independently evolved their views, and this isfurtlier
confirmed by a careful reading of Lamarck's first
exposition of his theory in his work of 1802. This
has very little similarity with Darwin's form of
statement or language, although it embodies essen-
tially the same theory. To Huxley's rather pointed
question : " It would be interesting to know wliat
was the occasion of Lamarck's change of view
between 1779 and 1802?" — we may answer that
this change was probably due to the change of his
studies from Botany to Zoology, for it was uj^on
animal life that his theory was developed.

156 from lamarck to st. hilaire.

Lamarck.

Lamarck (i 744-1829), as the founder of the
complete modern theory of Descent, is the most
prominent figure between Aristotle and Darwin.
One cannot compare his Philosophie Zoologique witli'
all previous and contemporary contributions to the
Evolution theory, or learn the extraordinary diffi-
culties under which he laboured, and that this work
was put forth only a few years after he had turned
from Botany to Zoology, without gaining the great-
est admiration for his genius. No one has been
more misunderstood, or judged with more partiality
by over or under praise. The stigma placed upon
his writings by Cuvier, who greeted every fresh
edition of his works as a ' nouvelle folie,' and the
disdainful allusions to him by Charles Darwin (the
only writer of whom Darwin ever spoke in this
tone), long placed him in the light of a purely ex-
travagant, speculative thinker. Yet, as a fresh iuv
stance of the certainty with w^hich men of science
finally obtain recognition, it is gratifying to note
the admiration which has been accorded to him in
Germany by Haeckel and others, by his country-
men, and by a large school of American and Eng-
lish writers of the present day; to note, further,
that his theory was finally taken up and defended
by Charles Darwin himself, and that it forms the
very heart of the system of Herbert Spencer.

None the less, it is now a question under discus-

LAMARCK. 1-7

sion, whether Lamarck's factor is a factor in Evohi-
tion at all ! If it prove to be no factor, Lamarck
will sink gradually into obscurity as one great
figure in the history of opinion. If it prove to be
a real factor, he will rise into a more eminent ])osi-
tion than he now holds, — into a rank not far below
Darwin's.

Jeanne Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, other-
wise known as the Chevalier de Lamarck, was,
according to his biographer, a man of great i)li\-.s-
ical and moral courage. He distinguished liim^clf
by an act of singular bravery in the army, and, re-
ceiving an injury, re-entered life as a doctor. He
was first attracted to Botany by the rich flora ob-
served during his military service near Monaco, and,
coming to Paris, he gained Buffon's attention, and
became an intimate friend of his household. His
Flore FraiK^aise, written in six months, was j)rinted
under Buffon's direction, and passed through manv
editions. This was a systematic work, an adapta-
tion of the system of Linn^us to the flora of France.
He seems to have been gifted with exceptionally
rapid observation, with great facility in writing,
and with unusual powers of definition and descrip-
tion. At the age of forty-nine he was transferred,
under the Directory, to a Zoological chair in the
Jardins des Plantes. Lamarck was especially
placed in charge of the invertebrates, and at the
same time Geoffroy St. Hilaire was appointed to the
care of the vertebrates. He took uj) the study of

158 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

Zoology with such zeal and success, that he almost
immediately introduced striking reforms in classifi-
cation. The early fruits of Lamarck's zoological
studies were not only a series of very valuable addi-
tions to the classification of animals, such as the
divisions, Vertebrata and Invertebrata, and the
groups, Crustacea, Arachnida, and Annelida, but
the rapid development of a true conception of the
mutability of species, and of the great law of the
origin of species by descent.

His devotion to the study of the small forms of
life, probably with inferior facilities for work, for he
was extremely poor, gradually deprived him of the
use of his eyes, and in 18 19 he became completely
blind. The last two volumes of the first edition of
his Histoire Nattirelle des Animaux sans VertebreSy
which was begun in 18 16 and completed in 1822,
was carried on by dictation to his daughter, who
showed him the greatest affection; after Lamarck
was confined to his room, it is said she never left the
house. Lamarck was thus saddened in his old age
by extreme poverty and by the harsh reception of
his transmutation theories, in the truth of which he
felt the most absolute conviction.

The development of Lamarck's views was, as we
have seen above, apparently coincident with his
turning from Botany to Zoology. His route of^
observation lay along Comparative Zoology and
Botany, as Goethe's lay along the Comparative
Anatomy and Morphology of plants and animals.

LAMARCK. 1 5Q

It seems that the most speculative of all his writino-s
were his earlier physical treatises. One of these
early works was his Rccherchcs stcr /cs causes dcs
principatix faits physiques, written in 1766, ])rc-
sented to the Academy in 1780, and published in
1 794, (the date of the Zoononiia). Here Lamarck,
as we have seen, affirms his belief in the immutability
of species and strong disbelief in the theory of the
spontaneous origin of life, saying that all the physi-
cal forces we know, combined, cannot form a single
organic being capable of reproduction. All individ-
uals in organic life descend from other individuals
altogether similar, which taken together constitute
the entire species. It is certain from this that in
1766 Lamarck held views similar to those of his
master, Buffon, in his third period. It is possible
that prior to 1794 his ow^n opinions had become
modified, but that he had left his original manu-
script unchanged for publication.

In his Hydrogeologie, published in 1802, he devel-
oped his uniformltarlan ideas in Geology and pro-
posed the term 'Biology' for the sciences of life.
In the same year appeared his Rccherchcs sur F Or-
ganisation des Corps Vivants, in which he first
sketches out his Evolution theory. This work was
particularly upon the origin of the living body, ui)()n
the causes of its development, and its progressive
composition. It is in the preface of this work that
he speaks of projecting a ' Physique Terrestre,' to
include three parts : Hydreologie, Mctcorologie, and

l6o FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

Biologie, The two latter sections were never com-
pleted. It is important to note that in this work hei
projects a scale of life somewhat similar to that oi
Bonnet and of Aristotle. This shows that in his
mind at that time, the history of life presented itself
as a vertical chain of masses of organisms not of
species ; so far as appears, he had not then developed
the branching idea. This chain he puts forth to
show the ' deo'radation' or Qrradation from the hi^h-
est to the lowest forms, indicating the march of
Nature in its progressive developments. Here and
elsewhere Lamarck acknowledges his indebtedness
to the Greeks, especially to Aristotle. Two main
principles are brought out in this work anticipating
his later theory of the causes of Evolution : first, it
is not organs which have given rise to habits, but
habits, modes of life, and environment which have
given rise to organs ; as illustrated by the blindness
of the mole, by the presence of teeth in mammals,
and the absence of teeth in birds. His second
principle is, that life is an order and condition of
things in the parts of all bodies w^hich possess it,
which renders possible all the organic movements
within.

There is no evidence in this work that Lamarck
had seen Darwin's Zoonomia. The parallelism
with the Zoo7iomia comes out much more promi-
nently in Lamarck's most important speculative
work, the Philosophie Zoologique, published in
1809, i^ which his earlier views are developed and

LAMARCK. i5j

expanded. This is characterized by a clear and
beautiful style, and by a logical development of the
argument, in which Lamarck's whole scheme of
Evolution is gradually unfolded. His theory was
never developed beyond this point, althou-Ji he
restated it in a more condensed form in the intro-
duction to both editions of his Histoirc dcs Aiii-
maux sans Verfebres between 1816 and 1S22.

The Philosophie Zoologique shows that three
truths had now come to him from his labours in
Botany and Zoology, and presumably from his
wider readings of Buffon's earlier writings, of
Linnaeus, and of the Greeks, to whom he makes
allusion. These are, first, the certainty that sj)e-
cies vary under changing external influences;
second, that there is a fundamental unity in
the animal kingdom ; third, that there is a ])rogres-
sive and perfecting development. Among the
influences of environment he cites the cases of the
supposed influence of water upon plants and ujDon
the lower animals; the influence of air in forming
the entire respiratory system of birds; the influence
of light upon plants, directly upon the colouring of
animals, and upon the development and degenera-
tion of eyes, and the influences of heat. The main
influences come under the law of Use and Disuse,
for he believes that Nature does not effect her
changes directly, but through the reaction of ani-
mals to their environment.

He thus differs widely from Buffon : " Lack of em-

M

1 62 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LA I RE.

ployment of an organ becoming constant under the
influence of certain habits, gradually impoverishes
the organ and ends by causing it to disappear en-
tirely." In the Discours preliminaire, he outlines
his work as divided into three parts. The first is
to treat of the subject in general, of methods of re-
search, of artificial distinctions raised by man in
classification, of the real meaning of the term ' spe-i
cies,' of the proofs of the 'degradation' (Evolution)
of organization from one end to the other of the
animal scale, of the influences of environment and
habit as causes favouring or arresting the develop-
ment of animals, of the natural order and classifica-
tion of animals. In this first section his whole
theory of Evolution is to be expanded, which we
will examine later. In the second part, he considers
the essential phenomena and physiological condi-
tions of life or ' orgasme ' and irritability, of the
peculiarities of cellular tissue, of the conditions
of spontaneous generation. This section covers
w^hat we would now term the general principles of
Biology. The third part is devoted to the develop-
ment of the nervous system, sensation, action, and
intelligence, including a theory of the origin and
formation of the nerves, and of the development of
mental faculties and ideas, lower and higher. Here
he treats of the relation of the mind of man to that
of the lower animals.

Lamarck's general philosophy of Nature comes
forth here. He is, first of all, an advocate of the

LAMARCK. 163

search for secondary causes, as opposed to arrest
with supernatural causation. He believes that we
see in Nature a certain order originally imposed by
its Author, which is manifested in the successive de-
velopment of life; we thus study natural forces and
Nature abandoned to its laws. In this sense we
see Nature creating and developing without cessa-
tion towards higher and higher types. Mxternal
conditions do not alter this order of development,
but give it infinite variety by directing the scale of
being into an infinite number of branches. Lamarck
denied, absolutely, the existence of any 'perfecting
tendency ' in Nature, and regarded Evolution as the
final necessary effect of surrounding conditions on
life. Thus, in his Teleology, he adopted the mod-
ern standpoint. Instead of suggesting that animals
had been created for a certain mode of life, he suj)-
posed that their mode of life had itself created them.
Wings were not given to birds to enable them to
fly, but they had developed wings in attempting to

fly.

In his discussion of Evolution in general, in the
section, ' De FOrdre naturel dcs Aniniaux,' he
says : —

" In considering the natural order of animals, the very positive
gradation which exists in their structure, organization, and in the
number as well as in the perfection of their faculties, is very far
removed from being a new truth, because the Greeks tlK-msclves
fully perceived it ; but they were unable to expose the princij^les
and the proofs of this evolution, because they lacked the knowl-

164 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. NIL A IRE.

edge necessary to establish it. In consideration of this gradation
of life, there are only two conclusions which face us as to its
origin : — The cofic/iisiofi adopted up to to-day : Nature (or its
Author) in creating animals has foreseen all possible sorts of cir-
cumstances in which they would be destined to live, and has given
to each species a constant organization, as well as a form deter-
mined and invariable in its parts, which forces each species to live
in the places and climates where it is found, and there to preserve
the habits which we know belong to it. My personal conclusion :
Nature, in producing successively all the species of animals, and
commencing by the most imperfect or the most simple to con-
clude its labour in the most perfect, has gradually completed their
organization ; and of these animals, while spreading generally in
all the habitable regions of the globe, each species has received,
under the influence of environment which it has encountered, the
habits which we recognize and the modifications in its parts which
observation reveals in it."

The first conclusion (Special Creation), he goes
on to say, is one which has been held by nearly
every one up to the present time. It attributes to
each animal a constancy of structure, and parts
which have never varied and will never vary. To
disprove the second conclusion (Evolution), he con-
tinues, it is necessary to prove, first, that each point
upon the surface of the globe never varies in its
nature, climate, exposure, elevation, and so forth.

The belief in the uniformity of past and present
changes was the next great factor in the develop-
ment of Lamarck's theory. It arose from his con-
templation of the data of Geology in connection
with those of Biology, as was afterwards the case
with Darwin, in so marked a degree. In Geology he

LAMARCK.

165

was an ardent advocate of the doctrine of uniform-
ity, as against the cataclysmal school. The main
principles are laid down in his Hydrogeologic, that
all the revolutions of the earth are extremely slow.
"For Nature," he says, "time is nothini;. It is
never a difficulty, she always has it at her disj)osal ;
and it is for her the means by which she has accom-
plished the greatest as well as the least of her
results. For all the evolution of the earth and of
living beings, Nature needs but three elements, —
' space, time, and matter." Lamarck, unlike I)uffon,
did not touch Cosmogony ; but in his observations
upon Geology he learnt, the first of all lessons, that
in speculating upon the past we should not regard
it as a period of catastrophe, that the true method
of study is to observe the steady march of Nature
at the present time ; for its present operations suffice
to explain all the facts which we observe in all its
past. This led Lamarck to the extreme of denying
all catastrophes in Geology, and all leaps or sudden
transitions in living Nature. " Nature," he repeats,
" to perfect and to diversify animals requires merely
matter, space, and time."

After this review of Lamarck's self-education,
intellectual equipment, and the influences of his
collateral studies, we come to his theory of the fac-
tors and nature of the Evolution of life, which were
first fully expressed in the Philosophic Zoologiquc,
and formulated later in the Histoire Naturcllc into
the four well-known propositfons : —

1 66 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LAI RE.

First Law. — Life by its internal forces tends
continually to increase the volume of every body
that possesses it, as well as to increase the size of
all the parts of the body up to a limit which it
brings about.

Second Law. — The production of a new organ
or part results from a new need or want, which
continues to be felt, and from the new movement
which this need initiates and causes to continue.
(This is the psychical factor in his theory, which
Cope later has termed Archaesthetism.)

Third Law. — The development of organs and
their force or power of action are always in direct
relation to the employment of these organs. (At
another point he expands this into two sub-laws :
" In every animal which has not passed the term of
its development, the more frequent and sustained
employment of each organ strengthens little by
little this organ, develops it, increases it in size,
and gives it a power proportioned to the length of
its employment ; whereas the constant lack of use
of the same organ insensibly weakens it, deteriorates
it, progressively diminishes its powers, and ends by
causing it to disappear." This is now known as
the Law of Use and Disuse, or Kinetogenesis.)

Fourth Law. — All that has been acquired or
altered in the organization of individuals during
their life is preserved by generation, and trans-
mitted to new individuals which proceed from those
which have undergone these changes.

LAMARCK. jgy

In his earlier work this was first expressed b)-
Lamarck as follows: —

" All that Nature has caused individuals to acquire or lose by
the influences of environment to which they have been long
exposed, and consequently by the influence of the predominant
employment of a certain organ, or by that of the continued lack
of use of the same part, — all this Nature conserves by generation
to the new individuals which arise, provided that these acquired
variations (changements) are common to both sexes, or to those
which have produced these new individuals."

This law is now known as 'the inheritance of
acquired characters,' or better, to revive Lamarck's
original idea expressed in the word chaugcmoiis.
we should call it the theory of inlicriiaucc of
acquired changes or variations.

This theory^ of Lamarck is seen to be substan-
tially similar to that of Erasmus Darwin, and to
depart widely from that of Buffon, for Lamarck
does not follow Buffon in supposing that environ-
ment directly produces changes in animals, either
in their form or organization. In a single sentence

^Premiere loi. — La vie, par ses propres forces, tend continuellement \
accroitre le volume de tout corps qui la possede, et h etendre les dimensions
de ses parties, jusqu'^. un terme qu'elle amene elle-meme.

Deuxieme loi. — La production d'un nouvel organe dans un corps animal
resulte d'un nouveau besoin survenu qui continue de se faire sentir, ct d'un
nouveau mouvement que ce besoin fait naitre et entretient.

Troisieme loi. — Le developpement des organes et leur force iraction sont
constamment en raison de I'emploi de ces organes.

Quatrihne loi. — Tout ce qui a ete acquis, trace ou change dans I'organisa-
tion des individus, pendant le cours de leur vie, est conserve par la generation
et transmis aux nouveaux individus qui proviennent de ceux qui ont cprouve
ces changements.

1 68 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

of the PhilosopJiie Zoologique he summarizes his
own doctrine as follows: —

*' But great changes in environment bring about changes in the
habits of animals. Changes in their wants necessarily bring about
parallel changes in their habits. If new wants become constant
or very lasting, they form new habits, the new habits involve the
use of new parts, or a different use of old parts, which results
finally in the production of new organs and the modification of
old ones."

Again, he says : —

" Circumstances influence the forms of animals. But I must
not be taken literally, for environment can effect no direct changes
whatever upon the organization of animals."

He illustrates his theory in advancing proofs
that it is not the organ which gives origin to the
habit, but the habit which gives origin to the
organ, and points out examples of the effects of use
and disuse. He refers all rudimentary structures
to disuse, such as the embryonic teeth of the whale-
bone whales, which had recently been discovered
by St. Hilaire, the eyes of the mole, and of the
Proteus, the blind salamander of the Austrian caves.
He is inconsistent wdth his own theory when he
says that the organ of hearing has been developed
everywhere by the direct action of vibrations of
sound. Again, he explains the development of the
webbed feet of birds, by their being attracted to
swampy ground by hunger, making efforts to swim,
spreading the toes, the skin being thus stretched
between them.

LAMARCK. ,5q

His conception of the initial causal relation of
the desires and wants of animals is illustrated in
the following paragraphs: —

"T conceive that a Gasteropod mollusc, which, as it crawls
along, finds the need of touching the bodies in front of it, makes
efforts to touch those bodies with some of the foremost parts of
the head, and sends to these every time quantities of nervous
fluids as well as of other liquids ; I conceive and say, tiiat it must
result from this reiterated afflux towards the point in question,
that the nerves which abut at these points will, by slow degrees,
be extended. Now, as in the same circumstances, other fluids of
the same animal flow also to the same places, and especially nour-
ishing fluids, it must follow that two or more tentacles will appear
and develop insensibly on the points referred to."

As illustrating the sensitiveness of lowly organized
animals to the action of evironment, he cites a series
of his observations upon Hydra, when moving about
in search of light.

Numerous other examples are given of the sup-
posed origin of other parts of the body, among which
we may select his account of the origin of the hoofs
in mammals :

"All mammals sprang from saurians, more or less similar to
our crocodiles. They first appeared under the form of amphib-
ian mammals with four feebly developed limbs. These j->rimi-
tive forms divided in the manner according to which they {c:(\.
Some, accustoming themselves to browse upon shrubs, became the
source of the ungulates. Advancing upon the earth, they experi-
enced the need of having longer limbs, their toes became elongated,
and the habit of resting upon their four feet during the greater
part of the day has caused a thick horn to arise, which envelops

I/O FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

the extremity of the toes of their feet. The other mammals re-
mained amphibious, Uke the seals."

He also explains the origin of the horns in the
ruminant animals by the efforts which they have
made to butt their heads together in their periods
of anger ; thus has been formed a secretion of matter
upon the forehead. The fleet types of ruminants
which have been exposed to the attacks of carnivo-
rous animals, have been obhged to fly, and have
thus acquired the habit of making very rapid move-
ments; thus have been formed the types of Gazelle,
Deer, and so forth. Such crude illustrations cer-
tainly could not predispose his contemporaries in
favour of his theory.

He was still less happy in his account of the liitibs
of snakes :

"The snakes sprang from reptiles with four extremities, but
having taken up the habit of moving along the earth and conceal-
ing themselves among bushes, their bodies, owing to repeated
efforts to elongate themselves and to pass through narrow spaces,
have acquired a considerable length out of all proportion to their
width. Since long feet would have been very useless, and short
feet would have been incapable of moving their bodies, there
resulted a cessation of use of these parts, which has finally caused
them to totally disappear, although they were originally part of the
plan of organization in these animals."

It is evident that Lamarck was forced to give
such illustrations as these, because, shut off as he
was from experiment and further observation, they
were the only ones which came within his range of

LAMARCK. i;i

imagination; with all their absurdities, they present
a semblance to the expressions of some modern
writers.

In his theory of Heredity, Lamarck postulated
the inheritance of acquired characters, which we
have learned to-day is the crucial point in his whole
system. He did not expand Buffon's theories in
regard to the physical basis of Transmission. He
brings out the results which spring from free inter-
crossing, showing that according to his theory, in
the union of individuals which have been subjected
to different environments, the effects of environment
would be neutralized, whereas the crossing of in-
dividuals which had been subjected to the same
environment would hasten and perpetuate the trans-
mission of similar effects. To this principle he
refers the fact that the accidental changes induced
by the habits of men are not perpetuated, since
they do not occur in both parents, whereas the
formation of distinct races in widely different parts
of the world, is due to the uniformity of their
environment.

Lamarck foresaw the great difficulties which would
arise in classification from his theory of the fihation
and mutability of all animal and plant types, and he
fully grasped the immediate bearings of the theory
upon the definition of species. He writes : " Nature
exhibits to us individuals succeeding each otlier, but
the species among them have only a relative sta-
bility, and are only temporarily invariable." Ouatrc-

1/2 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LAI RE.

fages remarks that he does not clearly distinguish
between species, races, and varieties.

The definition of species was in Lamarck's time
the test of the creed of the naturalist. Isidore St.
Hilaire, in the Histoire Nattirelle Generale, gives us
an interesting outline of the history of these defini-
tions, beginning with that of Linnaeus, including
Buffon's earlier and later definitions, and Cuvier s
later definitions ; Lamarck's is admirable : —

" A species is a collection of similar individuals which are per-
petuated by generation in the same condition, as long as their
environment has not changed sufficiently to bring about variation
in their habits, their character, and their form."

Certainly no better definition of a species could
be given to-day.

We have seen that Lamarck's final conception of
filiation, or the idea of the branching of life, had not
been reached in 1802, in which he gives a vertical
scale of the succession of groups of animals quite
similar to that which had been developing on the
false conception of phylogeny from the time of Aris-
totle. It is interesting, therefore, to place, side by
side, his first scale of 1802 with that which he pub-
lished in the Philosophie Zoologique, of 1809.

LAMARCK.

1/3

TABLEAU DU REGNE ANIMAL (1802).

MOxNTRANT LA DEGRADATION PROGRESSIVE DES 0R(.ANES SpeCIAUX

Jusqu'a Leur Aneantissemext.

Nota. — \j^ progression de la ddgradation n'est nulle part rc%uli^-re
ou proportionnelle ; mais elle existe dans Tensemble dune maniere
evidente.

Une colonne vertebrale, faisant la base d'un
squelette articuld.

Point de colonne vertdbrale ; point de veritable
squelette.

1. Les Mammaux

2. Les Oiseaux

3. Les Reptiles

4. Les Poissons

5. Les Mollusques

6. Les Annelides

7. Les Crustac^s

8. Les Arachnides

9. Les Insectes

10. Les Vers

11. Les Radiaires

12. Les Polypes

In 1802 he expressly speaks of the shaded grada-
tion in the complication of organization, not as a
lineal series of species, or even of genera, for he
says such a series does not exist. But, " I speak of
a series quite regularly gradated in its principal
masses; that is to say, in the principal known
systems of organization. Such a series in this case
certainly offers lateral ramifications in many direc-
tions, the extremities of which are truly isolated
points." This early conception of Lamarck's may
be compared to a fir-tree with a single central .stem
and radiating branches. He says, " that such a

174

FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE,

natural series has recently been denied, and that
some have substituted for a gradated series a re-
ticulated series, in which animals and plants are
spread out as upon a map. Such a reticulated
series has seemed sublime to some modern writers,
and Hermann has attempted to add probability
to it. But those who study more profoundly the
organization of living bodies, and occupy them-
selves less exclusively with the consideration of
species, will see that this view will have to be
entirely abandoned."

TABLEAU DU REGNE ANIMAL (1809).

U3

<U

a

<

3

'en

1°. Serie DES Animaux
Inarticules.

^^^_____^__^_ A _

/ »

Infusoires.
Polypes.

Radiaires.

<u J

£
<

c

'a;

<

Ascidiens.

Acephales.
Mollusques.

2°. Serie des Animaux
Articules.

Annelides.

Vers.

Epizoaires.

Insectes.

Arachnides.

Crustaces.
Cirrhipedes.

Poissons.
Reptiles.
Oiseaux.
Mammiferes.

This later conception of Lamarck's of the tree of
life as branching, not as radiating from a single

LAMARCK, 17^

central stem, but as branching from the roots into
larger and smaller stems, was first pul^h'shcd in
1809. This, so far as we know, was the first of the
great phyletic trees, the construction of which has
since occupied so large a portion of the energy of
zoologists, and has been carried to the farthest ex-
treme by Haeckel.

In his second table Lamarck derives the fishes
from the molluscs; but in a third table, pubhshed
in 18 1 5, while it is of the same branching character,
he declares that he can no longer connect the
vertebrates at any point with the invertebrates!
He therefore places them by themselves, without
attempting to filiate them. The third table, there-
fore, represents Lamarck's latest views.

His true conception of Phylogeny grew out of
his appreciation of the fact that many forms of life
had become extinct. He says {Philosophic Zoolo-
gique, Chapter 3) — "Those who have carefully
examined large collections of species, are aware
how they shade into each other, and that when we
find species which are apparently isolated, it is only
because we have not yet obtained the intermediate
forms. ... I do not wish to say that existing
animals form a simple and evenly graded series,
but they form a branching series, irregularly gra-
dated, the gaps having been filled by lost forms.
It follows that the species which terminate each
branch of the series are related, upon one side at
least, with others which shade into them." As

1/6 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

early as 1802 he held that affinities indicate com-
munity of parentage, and that it is necessary to
prove that the series which constitutes the animal
scale resides essentially in the distribution of the
principal masses which compose it, and not in that
of the species, nor even of the genera. As we see
in the above tables, Lamarck's attempts at recon-
structing the tree of life were crude, but consider-
ing the infancy of Paleontology and the entire
absence of embryological knowledge, his specula-
tions appear more to his credit. He supposed that
mammals passed through amphibious mammals back
to saurians similar to crocodiles. The seals or
aquatic mammalia gave rise to the Unguiculates or
clawed animals, and when the claws became too
long, the Carnivores made efforts to retract them.
Some primitive mammals did not leave the water
at all, but lost their limbs and became the Cetacea.
It is strange that Lamarck grasped the true idea
of extinction of the lower types, but not of the higher
types. He could not credit the extinction of such
perfect forms as the Mastodon or the Paleotherium
by any of the forces of Nature, but believed that
they had probably been exterminated by man, or
that these species might still be found alive else-
where. He thoroughly believed in the extinction
of lower types, for example, of the Molluscs, and
that the lower types had given way to the higher,
the ranks of the lower types being constantly replen-
ished by incessant creation of the lowest forms.

LAMARCK. lyj

As animals progressed, new forms were constantly
arising in the primitive scale. One of the strono-cst
objections which Lamarck had to meet, one which
shows that his theory of Transmutation excited a
lively discussion at the time, as Darwinism did after-
wards, was the persistency of certain lower tyj^es.
When Geoffroy St. Hilaire brought back his rich
collections of mummied cats and other animals
from the tombs of Egypt, and it was found that
these were identical with the actual living repre-
sentatives of the same species, and that these species
had existed without variation between two and three
thousand years, it was considered very strong evi-
dence against the Transmutation theory. Lamarck
replied that in Egypt there had been substantially
no change of environment, both the soil and the
climate had remained the same durinor that irreat
period ; that being the case, no new habits had been
imposed upon animals, and the persistence of their
characters was therefore readily explained.

It is also noteworthy that Lamarck, adopting for
animals the indirect action of environment, adopted
for plants a theory of the direct action of environ-
ment, in the absence of any nervous system whereby
these organisms could respond to external stimuli.
He thus coincided with Buffon in regard to plant
evolution. He cites numerous instances of rapid
modification by drought, by change of habitat, by
cultivation, and concludes: " All is effected by
changes undergone in the nutrition of the plant,

178 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LAI RE.

in its methods of absorption, and in its transpira-
tions, in the quantity of caloric, light, air, and
humidity; finally, in the superiority which certain
of its vital movements can take on over others."
In his transfer from the study of Botany to Zool-
ogy, Lamarck's interests seem to have been wholly
weaned from the study of plants. He does not
show the least glimmering of the ideas of the
struggle for existence among the plants, and does
not by any means enlarge Buffon's ideas upon this
subject.

In his speculations upon the origin of life, La-
marck at first seems to have rejected the doctrine of
Abiogenesis, but later (1802) he placed the origin
and continuous generation of the lowest forms of
life out of inorganic matter, at the base of his scale
of Evolution. He says: —

" In the waters of the ancient world, and at the present time,
very small masses of mucilaginous matter were collected. Under
the influences of light, certain elements, caloric and electric, entered
these little bodies. These corpuscles became capable of taking
in and exhaling gases ; vital movements began, and thus an ele-
mental plant or animal sprang into existence. Possibly higher
forms of life, such as infest the intestines, originate in this way,
Nature is thus always creating."

He believed that by these little masses of gelati-
nous matter, brought together by attraction, a tissue
' cellulaire ' was formed, containing gases and vital
movements ; that these little forms of life were the
original inhabitants of the globe ; moreover, that

LAMARCK.

179

spontaneous generation of these organisms was still
going on.^

After studying Lamarck and finding how iiuich
there is of great value in his system, \vc have to re-
cord that he exerted astonishingly little influence,
and, in France at least, was only followed by a single
writer. This was partly due to the stigma which
' was placed upon the transmutation theory, and the
strong opposition to Lamarck's doctrine by Cuvier,
the most influential naturalist of the time. As La-
marck retired from active life after the loss of his
eyesight, he became a less and less known figure ;
he could take no direct part in spreading his doc-
trines, and left the arena of discussion open to
Cuvier and St. Hilaire.

Lamarck, as a naturalist, exhibited exceptional
powers of definition and description, while in his
philosophical wTitings upon Evolution, his specula-
tion far outran his observations, and his theory
suffered from the absurd illustrations which he
brought forward in support of it. It was such ex-
amples as the method of evolution of the snakes,
which gave Lamarck's critics their opportunity of
throwing all his ideas into ridicule ; and from some
of these brief illustrations his critics spread the im-
pression that he believed animals acquired new or-
gans simply by wishing for them. His really sound
speculation in Zoology was also injured by his ear-
Her and thoroughly worthless speculation in Chem-

iQken's similar theory was not advanced until 1S05.

l8o FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LAIR E.

istry and other branches of science. Another
marked defect was, that Lamarck was completely
carried away with the belief that his theory of the
transmission of acquired characters was adequate
to explain all the phenomena. He did not, like his
contemporaries, Erasmus Darwin and Goethe, per-
ceive and point out, that certain problems in the
origin of adaptations were still left wholly untouched
and unsolved. Believing that he saw a great Evo-
lution factor, and applying it to organic nature, he
was blind to its deficiencies and to every other
factor, and sought to establish it as a sufficient ex-
planation of every change in the animal world. His
arguments are, in most cases, not inductive, but de-
ductive, and are frequently found not to support his
law, but to postulate it. Another defect was his
limited conception of Natural Environment, in
which he was inferior to his contemporary, Trevira-
nus. Treviranus and St. Hilaire enlarged upon
Buffon's view of Environment, while Lamarck did
not. The greatest gap in his reasoning has become
obvious since his time ; namely, that it turned upon
the assumption that acquired characters are inher-
ited ; this he took for granted and never endeavoured
to demonstrate.

None the less we must close by placing La-
marck in the first rank. He was the first natur-
alist to become profoundly convinced of the great
law, and to place it in the form of a system ; he
suffered social and scientific ostracism for this con-

-/

GOETHE. Igl

viction, maintaining and repeating his arguments to
his death-bed. There is a pathetic strain in the in-
troduction to the last edition of his Animaux sans
Vertedres : —

"Avant d'atteindre le terme de mon existence, j'ai pensd que
dans un nouvel ouvrage, susceptible d'etre considt^r^ comme
une seconde Edition de mon Systhne des Animaux sans Vertcbres^
je devais exposer les principaux faits que j'ai recuellis pour mes
legons. . . . Ainsi que mes observations et mes reflexions sur la
source de ces faits."

JoHANN Wolfgang Goethe (i 749-1832) was
the greatest poet of Evolution ; he saw the law
as a poet, as a philosopher, and as an anatomist.

While making the most substantial contribu-
tions to the scientific evidences, he did not, Hke
his French contemporary, formulate a system. He
was born five years later and died three years
earlier than Lamarck, yet never knew of his writ-
ings. This circumstance Haeckel truly calls a
tragic loss to science, for Goethe would have made
the buried Philosophie Zoologiqiie known to the
w^orld.

The brilliant early achievements of Goethe in
science afford another illustration of the union of
imagination and powers of observation as the essen-
tial characteristics of the naturalist. When he took
his journey into Italy, and the poetic instinct began
to predominate over the scientific, science lost a
disciple who w^ould have ranked among the very
hio-hest, if not the hiorhest. Of this time Goethe

1 82 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LA I RE.

says : " I have abandoned my master Loder for my
friend Schiller, and Linnaeus for Shakespeare."
Yet Goethe, in the midst of poetry, never lost his
passion for scientific studies. He seems to have
felt instinctively that what contemporary science
needed was not only observation, but generaliza-
tion. He showed his own power of scientific
generalization in his famous studies upon the meta-
morphoses of plants, and in his discovery (later
independently reached by Oken) of the vertebrate
theory of the skull, which, indeed, was only a part
of his contribution to Comparative Osteology and
Anatomy.

His inspiration was undoubtedly drawn partly
from Buffon and largely from the school of German
natural philosophers. He also imbibed the Greek
influence, and in his general view of Nature, ex-
pressed in his Gott und Welt, we see the ideas of
God working in Nature and of the unity of the
development process. This he also brought out in
the dialogue between Thales and Anaxagoras in
the Walpurgisnacht, Here is unfolded the con-
ception of the uniformity of past and present pro-
cesses in Geology and Cosmogony. It is astonish-
ing that Goethe never came across the works of
Lamarck. He anticipated Lamarck as an evolution-
ist in his Metamorphoses of Plants, which was pub-
lished in 1790, and the Lamarckian principle is
one in which he would have undoubtedly felt the
deepest interest. His sympathies in France were

GOETHE. jg,

wholly with Geoffrey St. Hilairc and his conten-
tion for Philosophical Anatomy and Philosophical
Biology. Showing that to the very last Goethe took
the keenest interest in science, and jDlaced the
movements of scientific thought above j^olitical
revolutions, we learn of his following the debates
between St. Hilaire and Cuvier ; here is the
famous incident of his eighty-first year, told by
Soret, and quoted by Haeckel : —

"Monday, Aug. 2d, 1830. — The news of the outbreak of the
revolution of July arrived in Weimar to-day, and has caused
general excitement. In the course of the afternoon I went to
Goethe. ' Well,' he exclaimed as I entered, * what do you think
of this great event? The volcano has burst forth, all is in flames,
and there are no more negotiations behind closed doors.' ' A
dreadful affair,' I answered ; ' but what else could be expected
under the circumstances, and with such a ministry, except that it
would end in the expulsion of the present royal family?' 'We
do not seem to understand each other, my dear friend,' rei)lied
Goethe. ' I am not speaking of those people at all ; I am inter-
ested in something very different. I mean the dispute between
Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire, which has broken out in the
Academy, and which is of such great importance to science.'
This remark of Goethe's came upon me so unexpectedly that I
did not know what to say, and my thoughts for some minutes
seemed to have come to a complete standstill. * The affair is of
the utmost importance,' he continued, ' and you cannot fi)rni any
idea of what I felt on receiving the news of the meeting on the
19th. In Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire we have now a mighty ally
for a long time to come. But I see also how great the sympathy
of the French scientific world must be in this affliir, for, in sjiite
•of the terrible political excitement, the meeting on the 19th was
attended by a full house. The best of it is, however, that tiie

184 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

synthetic treatment of Nature, introduced into France by Geoffroy,
can now no longer be stopped. This matter has now become
public through the discussions in the Academy, carried on in the
presence of a large audience ; it can no longer be referred to secret
committees, or be settled or suppressed behind closed doors.' "

It is not surprising that Goethe was appreciated
in France, and that he was highly praised by-
Isidore St. Hilaire. In Cuvier we find the follow-
ing allusion to his essays on Comparative Anatomy :
" One finds in them, with astonishment, nearly
all the propositions which have been separately
advanced in recent times." And Richard Owen,
somewhat later, wrote : " Goethe had taken the
lead in his inquiries into Comparative Osteology."
Carus, in his preface to his Transcendental Aiiat-
omy, wrote: " If we go back as far as possible
into the history of the labours undertaken with the
view to arrive at the philosophic conception of the
skeleton, we find that the first idea of the meta-
morphosis of the osseous forms ; that is, that all
forms are but modifications, more or less traceable,
of one and the same type ; this idea belongs to
Goethe."

The ' unity of type ' hypothesis, which exercised
such a potent influence in Europe, was developed
in Goethe's mind in 1 796 ; this was the concep-
tion which formed the chief basis of his idea of
Evolution: —

"Thus much, then, we have gained, that we may assert, without
hesitation, that all the more perfect organic natures, such as fishes.

GOETHE. 1 85

amphibious animals, birds, mammals, and man at the head of the
list, were all formed upon one original type, which varies only
more or less in parts which are none the less permanent, and
which still daily changes and modifies its form by propagation."

With him, this unity of type was broadly based
upon his own observations, and was partly a gener-
alization. This led him to a correct explanation of
half-developed, or vestigial, structures, which are
among the strongest evidences of the law of Evolu-
tion. He thoroughly understood the relations of
the anatomy of man to that of lower forms, and
speaks of vestigial structures in man as follows :
" These structures, which in lower oro-anisms are
developed iji stronger measure, and in man, in spite
of his higher organism, are not wholly lost." It was
this interpretation as a working hypothesis, wliich
led to one of Goethe's most brilliant achievements
in Comparative Anatomy, — his prediction of the dis-
covery of premaxillary bones in man. Tin's raised
a storm of opposition which now seems hardly
credible, in spite of which Goethe succeeded in
verifying his prediction.

Thus, Goethe stepped from observation to gener-
alization, from generalization to the working hypoth-
esis, which he turned into use as the guide to fresh
research. He advanced upon the truly modern scien-
tific method; yet, he always preserved the proper
balance between observation and generalization.
He says of Kant, that, if he had once held Kant's
conception of derivation and of filiation, as deduced

1 86 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE,

by reason, and could have undertaken lines of
inquiry, nothing would have prevented him from
carrying out its proofs.

He was superior to all his three contemporaries,
Lamarck, Treviranus, and St. Hilaire, in his realiza-
tion that certain problems were very far from solu-
tion ; in a work, written in 1 794-95, but not published
until long afterwards, he remarked that, " the ques-
tion for future naturalists wdll be to determine how,
for instance, cattle got their horns, and not for what
they are used." He thus, with Kant, felt the gap
in the lack of a natural explanation for the origin
of purposive structures.

Goethe's theory of the factors, so far as formulated,
had the spirit of Buffon and Lamarck, and is beauti-
fully expressed in the passage Haeckel selects from
his Metamorphosis of Animals (1819) : —

" All members develop themselves according to eternal laws,
And the rarest form mysteriously preserves the primitive type.
Form, therefore, determines the animal's way of life,
And in turn the way of life powerfully reacts upon all form.
Thus the orderly growth of form is seen to hold
Whilst yielding to change from externally acting causes." ^

In his Metamorphoses of Plaiits, published in
1790, we find Goethe's ideas clearly expressed.
He here derives all plants from a single original
form, and all the elaborate structures of the plant
from the leaf. He called his theory, ' Bildung tend
U7nbildung' or ' Formation and Transformation.'

1 This contains the Aristotelian ' matter and form ' notion, together with a
perception of the factors of Lamarck (4th line) and of Buffon C6th line).

TREVIRANUS. 1 87

The ' Urbild,' or type, was composed of the internal
original common characters, or, as we sliould say,
the 'stem characters,' lying at the base of all forms,
and these original structures were preserved by
heredity.

The preservation of this type was opposed by
a continuous progressive development, and this
was necessitated by the relations of the organism to
the outer world. The former, or type, is the cen-
tripetal structural force, or specification; while the
latter, or progressive development, is the centrifugal
structural force, or metamorphosis. Goethe prized
highly the conception of these two opposed forces,
which we now know as Heredity and Variation, or
Inheritance and Adaptation. Morphology was
Goethe's favourite study, and upon transformation
depended all his ideas of the Descent theory. Phy-
letic series, and the methods of ascertaining them,
were wholly unknown to him, but structural series,
or the modifications of a primitive type or arche-
type, exhibited successively in the lower and highcr
types of plants and in the lower and higher types
of animals, were clearly perceived, and, as we have
seen above, they led Goethe to a thoroughly philo-
sophical interpretation of structures in all stages of
Evolution, in the three phases of Development, Bal-
ance, and Degeneration.

Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (i 776-1837), a
prominent German naturalist and contemjiorary of
Lamarck and Goethe, has the distinction of defin-

1 88 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

ing ' Biology ' as the science of living Nature, in
1802. It is an interesting coincidence that both he
and Lamarck independently felt the need of a
comprehensive term for the principles underlying
Botany and Zoology, and proposed it in the same
year.

Huxley has also placed Treyiranus beside La-
marck as one of the founders of the Evolution
theory; but a careful study of Treviranus' chief
work — Biologie oder PhilosopJiie der lebeiide^i
Natur — does not justify our ranking these two
men together. In the other extreme, Treviranus, as
an evolutionist, has been too widely ignored. He
is not named by any of the French writers; his
own countryman, Haeckel, has shown his posi-
tion clearly, but places him below Oken. I may
give a rather full statement of his views. His Bio-
logie was published several years after Lamarck's
first essay upon Evolution, but in the preface of
his last work, — Erscheiiiungen und Gesetze des
Organischen Lebens, which was published in 1830,
— Treviranus states that he had reached his conclu-
sions independently of and prior to Lamarck.
Even in this case we cannot claim for Trevira-
nus great originality ; for in his conception of Evo-
lution he does not advance very far beyond the
standpoint reached by Buffon in his middle period,
and he appears to us rather as a very careful student
and compiler not only of Buffon but of Leibnitz,
Kant, Schelling, — all of whom suggested the

TREVIRANUS. 1 89

Evolution theory, — also of Linnaeus, Harvey, and
Blumenbach. He had moreover the advanta"-e of
the new Paleontology of Cuvier and of the travels
of Humboldt.

His point of approach to Nature is that of the
German natural philosophers. He places life upon
the chemical and mechanical basis, and in hi> intro-
duction enters a vigorous protest against the jnu-ely
speculative work upon the one side, — die Tnuiuic
2md Visio7ien, — probably having in mind his worthv
predecessor Bonnet and others whom I have j^laced
in the speculative group. On the other side, lie
protests against the dry systematic work which
Linneeus had left to his posterity, — his terms with-
out his genius, — a Botany and Zoology devoid of
all higher generalizations.

"An author," he says, "can have no sadder and more spirit-
killing duty than the reading and writing of compilations. The
teachings of Natural Science have long been standing isolated like
the pyramids in the deserts of Egypt, as if the value of Natural
History were not rather the application than the mere possession
of facts. What have Botany and Zoology been hitherto, but a dry
register of names, and what man who has not lost his sense fi)r
higher work can find time for these gymnastics of memory ? But
once regard systematic work as a part of Biology, ami nomencla-
ture as a means rather than as an end, and both take their place
in science, contributing to the whole in which the intellect of man
perceives the unity and harmony of Natural Law. l^ven the work
of Linn^us, as it does not reach the highest point, is mere con-
struction. The author will give opinion and theory a place in
this work, but he is far from those who give their dreams and
fancies a reahty and permanence, believing that his own theories

1 90 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

may perish, and hoping to direct the current of thought in Biol-
ogy to adapt itself to Nature, and not to make Nature adapt her-
self to the current of thought. Let us not direct the stream of
Nature, but be directed by her. Let us publish a work which
will collect the numerous thoughts lying scattered throughout
the writings of Natural History, and this generalization will have
greater value than all the descriptions of new forms."

Treviranus thus ranges himself with the school
of Buffon, Lamarck, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and
Goethe, as against the school of Linnaeus and
Cuvier. He believed that it was possible to dis-
cover the Philosophy of Nature, and his whole
work is written in an admirable spirit. In the
succeeding introductory chapters upon the inter-
pretation of living Nature, he considers the impor-
tance of Biology, its fundamental principles, possible
systems of Biology, methods of experimental Biol-
ogy, as well as the use of the hypothesis, — that is,
the working hypothesis, — as the essential weapon
of progress towards the truth. He defines Biology
as "the study of the different forms and appear-
ances of organic life, of the conditions and laws
under which these exist, and of the causes by which
they are kept in operation." In the Laws of Life
(p. 58), he points out that every part of the organ-
ism is subservient to the whole, that Nature never
builds up one organ or system of organs without
causing others to suffer reduction. This is equiva-
lent to the ' loi de balancemejit ' of St. Hilaire, or the
modern law of ' compensation of growth,' the defi-

TREVIRANUS. ,,,i

ciency of one part being made up by the greater
development of another. He also, as clearly as
Lamarck, perceives the causal relation between
function and structure. In his conception of
natural environment, he with Schelling perceives
that every class of animals exerts upon living
Nature influences similar to those exerted in the
animal or plant by their organs and systems of
organs upon each other.

He has two chief thoughts in regard to environ-
ment. First, the influences of life upon life, and of
life upon Nature; and second, the constant revolu-
tions of life and climate. He says that the wider the
limits reached by the action or by the incidence or
impact of environment upon the living organism,
so much higher the grade of the organism must be.
The lowest rudiments of life — vita minima — are
those in which the action of environment falls with
least specialization, and these rudiments mark the
transition to lifeless matter. This conception of
environment, as the action and reaction of life upon
Nature and of life upon life, he amplifies in connec-
tion with the law of Buffon and Malthus, that the
struggle for existence consists, not only in repro-
duction, but in reproduction increasing in quantity
accordins: to the destructive influences of surround-
ing life. An animal must have more progeny as the
number of its enemies increases.

We thus see that Treviranus breathed the spirit
of the most philosophical of his predecessors, and

192 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LAIR E.

was essentially modern in his method. We, there-
fore, expect to find an equal breadth of view in his
treatment of the problem of Evolution. Here we
are disappointed, for we find only another proof of
the insuperable difiiculties under which these early
evolutionists laboured, in the comparatively limited
knowledge they possessed of the forms and succes-
sions of life. As soon as Treviranus departs from
these first principles of Biology and undertakes an
application of these principles to a theory of devel-
opment of animal life, he becomes more and more
speculative, and shows himself much inferior to
Lamarck in his approach to the truth.

In his conception of Evolution, we see him trans-
lating Buffon's term ' dhiaturee, ' by ' degeneration ' ;
for he means by ' degeneration ' exactly what we
now term 'adaptation,' or modification, by the ac-
tion of external formative forces ; in other words,
both development and degeneration. His theory of
the Evolution factors is very similar to that of
Buffon, as he traces degeneration solely to the influ-
ences of varying external conditions, and this he be-
lieves to be the modifying factor in single organisms.
The perpetual changes in living surroundings bring
about constant changes in the organization of the
body.

In course of these changes old species are de-
stroyed and new ones take their places. He brings
out clearly the idea of the action of environment in
the elimination of species, groups, and families, but

TRE VI RAN US.

193

does not assign this as a cause of the origin of adap-
tations. Thus, many species become extinct, while
others become diminished in numbers. Man, liiin-
self, exhibits the direct modifying influence of his
environment by wide variations in his structure.
The history of the older geological periods is given
us in the succession of fossils. Here, Tre\'iranus
added to the work of Cuvier the idea of mudifica-
tion in time, an idea which Cuvier never adopted.

Continuing to extend his Evolution theory (Vol.
III., p. 225), we find that he believed in Abiogc-
nesis : —

Every form of life can be produced by physical forces in one
of two ways : either by coming into being out of formless (inor-
ganic) matter, or by the modification of an already existing form
by a continued process of shaping. . . . Wherever Nature has
exerted her building forces she has brought forth Autochthones,

living bodies,

. . . qui rupfo robore nati,
Compositive Into, nidlos habuere parenies.

Wherever like conditions prevailed, of climate, earth, water, atmos-
phere, and a similar geographical position, these Autochthones
were similar, and the species which developed from them remained
similar as long as the environment was unaltered. But in studying
the form of any particular country, it is very hard to determine
which forms are native or autochthonous, and which have spread
into the country by migration from other countries.

He then proceeds to anachronistic theories of the
abio^enetic orlgrin of these Autochthones: —

" But how did these species arise? Were they born fully formed,
like Aphrodite, from sea-foam? Or as simple zoophytes? Thcv

o

194 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

could only have arisen by the development from generation to gen-
eration of similar forms ; these primitive forms are the Encrinites,
Pentacrinites, Ammonites, and other zoophytes of the Old World,
from which all organisms of the higher classes have arisen. Each
species has its period of growth, of full bloom, and decline ; the
latter is a period of degeneration. Thus, it is not only the great
catastrophes of Nature which have caused extinction, but the
completion of cycles of existence, out of which new cycles have
begun. Thus, in Nature, all is in a state of flux and transfer ;
even man has not reached the highest term of his existence, but
will progress to still higher regions, and produce a nobler type of
being."

These sentences show that Treviranus did not
add anything to the main theory of Evolution, al-
though a strong advocate of it. His ideas upon
descent are much less clear and accurate than those
of Lamarck ; and in his views of the original, spon-
taneous origin of some of the higher forms of life,
as shown in the sentence last quoted, he is very far
afield. Haeckel is mistaken when he states that
Treviranus refers to the lowest organisms in the
term ' zoophytes,' for Treviranus couples with this
term such complex forms as Crinoids and Ammo-
nites. As to the factors of Evolution, he does not
advance beyond Buffon, and in his general concep-
tion he virtually takes the position held ,much
earlier by Goethe, for he summarizes his views
in the sentence : " In every living being there exists
the capability of an endless variety of form-
assumption ; each possesses the power to adapt its
organization to the changes of the outer world, and it

CUVIER. 105

is this power, put into action by the change of the
universe, that has raised the simple zoophytes of tlie
primitive world to continually higher stages of or-
ganization, and has introduced a countless variety
of species into animate Nature."

Georges Cuvier (i 769-1832), as the great oppo-
nent of Lamarckian doctrines in particular, of Evo-
lution in general, and of the methods of thought
which were surely leading to its demonstration, de-
serves a few words in this history. It is interesting
to note that in forming his personal opinions, he re-
versed the order taken by Linnaeus, Lamarck, and
St. Hilaire; for, starting with views very similar t(^
the most advanced held by Buff on upon the muta-
bility of species, he arrived at a point as conserva-
tive as the early position of Linnaeus, insisting upon
the fixity, not only of species, but of varieties. His
definition was of the kind destined to prevail until
1858. "All the beings belonging to one of these
forms (perpetuated since the beginning of all things,
that is, the Creation) constitute what we call sjk'-
cies." As head of the illustrious Ecolc dcs Faiis,
he laughed, and set his pupils laughing, over the
* Philosophy of Nature,' characterizing it as ' La Utc

de la tete'

It is strancre that whenever Cuvier left his oh-
jective studies for speculation, he was exceinionally
unsound; in his Embryology he believed in 'Evo-
lution' z/^r57/i- ' Epigenesis ' ; in his Discours sur
les Revolutions stir la Stirfacc du Glolh\ he ad\-o-

196 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

cated the doctrine of Catastrophism versus Unifor-
mity ; he also advanced, and later retracted, the
theory of a ' succession of special creations.' As
the chief founder of Comparative Anatomy and
Paleontology, he introduced the modern conception
of Paleontology as past Zoology. He first de-
scribed Anchitherium, and pointed out its resem-
blance to the Horse ; this is a form which, perhaps,
more than any other, is to-day part of the most
convincing fossil testimony of Evolution ; yet Cuvier
failed to see in it any proofs of the ' filiation ' hy-
pothesis he was opposing. His influence was almost
unbounded ; a favourite of Napoleon, he was able
to build up a great school in the Jardin des Plantes,
and exerted his political influence in keeping the
' transformists ' out of position. He was followed by
De Candolle, the botanist, by Dumeril, the inver-
tebrate zoologist, by De Blainville, the paleontolo-
gist ; in Germany, by Vogt and Bronn. Richard
Owen partly shared Cuvier's views, and partly those
of St. Hilaire.

Geoffroy St. Hilaire (i 772-1 844), another
of the distinguished French naturalists of the
early part of this century, was long a colleague
of Lamarck in the Jardin des Plantes. We cannot
read his works without perceiving that he was by
birth a philosopher, and by adoption a naturalist.
Although his theory of the causes was profoundly
different from that of Lamarck, he belonged to the
Buffon- Lamarck school of thought, as opposed to

ST. HILAIRE. igy

that of Cuvier, and in support of this school liis
name came into wide celebrity by the famous dis-
cussion of 1830 in the French Academy of Sciences,
to which Goethe alluded. He added largely to
the evidences of 'filiation' and contributed sev-
eral entirely original theoretical 'factors' of trans-
formation; nevertheless, there is an undercurrent
of doubt as to the extent of the law of Evolution,
in all his writings. He was not a radical evolution-
ist like Lamarck.

Perrier, Quatrefages, and the younger St. Hilaire
have carefully studied his opinions and historv.
St. Hilaire w^as a pupil of Buff on, but as a thinker
he mainly acknowledges his debt to the German
Natural Philosophers and especially to Schelling
in his researches upon the philosophy of Nature;
althouQ-h he does not follow Schellino: in his advo-
cacy of the superiority of the deductive method.

St. Hilaire's method was professedly inductive.
Ideas, he said, should be directly engendered by
facts. His conceptions were often a priori, but his
demonstrations were always a posteriori. In his
speculation upon Evolution, we see that St. Hilaire
was by no means always consistent with his method,
but was very largely influenced by certain classes
of facts which came under his direct observation,
and reasoned from these to laws touching facts of
quite a distinct character. Goethe says of him:
"He recalls Buffon in some points of view. He
does not stop at Nature existing or achieved ; he

198 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HI LA IRE.

studies it in the germ, in its development, and in its
future. He projects the idea of unity, which Buffon
had just touched upon." There were three branches
of study in which St. Hilaire was most deeply inter-
ested. First, Comparative Anatomy; second. Tera-
tology ; and third, what came to be known as
Philosophical Anatomy when he finally embodied it
in the Philosophie Ajiatomique. This was published
in 18 18, and was the work so greatly admired by
Goethe. The narrower range of his studies, the
dominating influence of his ' unity of type ' principle
and the sudden departures from type seen in his
pathological studies, shaped the growth of St.
Hilaire s limited and peculiar view of Evolution.

He has been mistakenly spoken of as the suc-
cessor of Lamarck. It is simply true that he took
up the general doctrines of transformism at the
point where Lamarck could no longer defend them.
As a remarkable coincidence, Buffon, Lamarck, and
Hilaire all became transformists at the same aee of
life. His son, Isidore St. Hilaire, as well as Quatre-
fages and Perrier, show very clearly that he was
more properly the disciple and expander of Buffon.
He denied the inherited influences of habit, which
formed Lamarck's central thought, and maintained
that the direct action of environment was the sole
cause of transformation, always regarding organisms
as comparatively passive in their ' milieu! Thus he
found it necessary to greatly differentiate Buffon's
conception of environment, especially on its chemi-

ST. in LA IRE. log

cal atmospheric side, attributing very marked results
to its influence upon the respiratory functions, as
in his account of the evolution of the crocodiles
from the saurians.

It was between 1825 ^^nd 1828 that Geoff roy
pubHshed his memoirs upon the fossil Tclcosaurs
of Caen, and connected them by theoretical descent
with the existing Gavials.^ Changing environment
and respiration were, he believed, the chief factors
in this transformation.^

" Le monde ambiant est tout puissant pour une alt<^raiion des
corps organises. ... La respiration constitue, selon moi, une
ordonnee si puissante pour la disposition des formes animales (ju'il
n'est meme point necessaire que le milieu des fluides respiratoire
se modifie brusquement et fortement, pour occasioner des formes
tres peu sensiblement alterees."

The atmosphere, acting upon the pulmonary cells,
brings about '' modifications which are favo^irablc or
destructive {^ funestes ' ); these are inherited, and they
influence all the rest of the organization of the aiiinial
because if these modifications lead to injurious effects,
the animals which exhibit them perisJi and are replaced
by others of a somewhat different form, a Jorni
changed so as to be adapted to [a la co)ivena)ice) the
new environmentr This is a very striking state-
ment of a law of variation due to the influences
of environment, and of the survival or extinction of

^ Recherches sur des grands Sanriens trouves h titat fossile. Mem. Acad,
d. Sciences, Paris, 1831.

2 Influence du monde ambiant pour modifier les formes animales. Mem.
de I'Acad. d. Sc, XIL, p. 63, 1833.

200 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

types according to the favourable or unfavourable
character of the variation. Perrier italicizes this
passage and points out its anticipation of Darwinism.
Another highly characteristic feature of his theory
was, that he included in it what has recently been^
termed 'saltatory evohition', and strongly opposed \
Lamarck's fundamental principle that all transfor-_J
mation is extremely slow. It is evident that this
idea was suggested to him by the sudden transfor-
mations observed in his teratological studies. This^
enabled him to maintain Evolution without de-
monstrating the existence of intermediate forms.
Intermediate forms had beo^un to be a stumblinor-

y

block to evolutionists. Where, it was asked, was
evidence of a transition between amphibians and
reptiles, and between reptiles and birdsi^^his
also enabled St. Hilaire to avoid a difficulty he
himself raised, that characters of new forms of life
would not be maintained pure, owning to the blends
of interbreeding ; these sudden saltations or leaps
from type to type secured the necessary physiologi-
cal isolation. As a rapid transformationist, he was
not, however, an imitator of De Maillet, who, we
remember, believed in the transformation of adult
forms. St. Hilaire denied the possibility of these
rapid leaps in the adult condition, and believed that
they took place mainly in the embryonic condition ; !
here, the underlying causes of sudden transformation
were profound changes induced in the ^^^ by external
influences, accidents as it were, regulated by law.

ST. IHLAIRE. 201

As it involved rapid, as well as gradual, transfor-
mation, St. Hilaire's system did not alwavs rccjuire
the existence of intermediate links. Vox instance,
he advanced as an hypothesis the suggestion that
the first bird might have issued directly from the
^%% laid by a reptile, and, as a bird could not be fer-
tilized or intercrossed by its reptilian relatives, the
new characters could not be supjDressed by inter-
crossing: "It is evidently not by an insensible
change that the inferior types of oviparous verte-
brates have given rise to the superior organization of
the group of birds. An accident, within the ran<rc
of possibility, and not very great in its original pro-
duction, but of an incalculable importance in all its
effects, has sufficed to produce in all parts of the
body the conditions of the bird type."

Finally, his attitude towards transformism, as
explaining all forms of life, was much less positive
and sweeping than Lamarck's. His view of Evo-
lution may be summed up in this sentence : " Spe-
cies vary with their environment, and existing
species have descended by modification from earlier
and somewhat simpler species." He admitted that
the question to be decided by future paleontological
research, is whether " the living forms of to-day
have descended by a succession of generations, and
without break, from the extinct forms of the ante-
diluvian period." He looked for, and found, proofs
and evidences, within his own reach, in limbryology,
in the history of metamorphoses and in Teratology.

202 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

Not even in speculation did he trace back all forms
of life to a simple prototype ; he thus narrowed
Lamarck's wide field of conjecture in Phylogeny.

We find a full account of the famous discussion
of the year 1830, between St. Hilaire and Cuvier,
in Perrier's Philosophie Zoologiqiie avaiit Darwin.
It is also frequently alluded to in the Histoire
Natttrelle Ghierale, by the younger St. Hilaire.

Linnaeus opened his Systema Natures with the
statement that the true greatness of man consists
in his observing, reasoning, and forming conclu-
sions, but the main tendency of his own work was
to carry his conclusions only to the point of distin-
guishing between the separate forms of life, not to
the causes of these distinctions. Buffon held that
the first aim of science was to describe exactly, and
to determine particular facts, but that we must de-
vote ourselves to something higher ; namely, to com-
bine and generalize upon the facts, and to judge
particular causes in the light of the more general
causes of Nature. Thus, Linnaeus and Buffon were
the founders of two distinct schools. Linnaeus was
upheld by Cuvier and all the systematic writers ;
Buffon by Lamarck, Treviranus, Goethe, and St. Hil-
aire. Into this higher region of generalization, which
Goethe took up only to abandon, few naturalists
dared to stir. The followers of Linnaeus showed
themselves weakest where they attempted deduction,
and we have contrasted the soundness of Cuvier s
Comparative Anatomy with the worthlessness of his

ST. HILAIRE AND CUVIER. 203

speculation. The Buffon school came into ridicule
by some of the wild hypotheses in tlK-ir caHier
books; for neither Buffon nor Lamarck knew wht-n
to apply the curb. Excessive speculation bnni;^rht
a reaction. After Kielmeyer, Schellinc^, and Goethe,
there was a return to the older methods of simple
observation and record. As we have seen, tlii> was
partly justified by the fact that the whole jjliilosophy
of the speculative writers, and much of that of
Buffon and Lamarck, was deductive, rather than in-
ductive. Geoffroy St. Hilaire sought to revive
speculation and place it upon the true inductive-
deductive basis in his Philosophic Auatojni(]uc.

On the 15th February, 1830, matters came to a
crisis; St. Hilaire read before the Academv of
Sciences at Paris, in the name of Latreille and him-
self, a report upon the investigations of two voung
naturalists. The conclusions reached in the report
were advanced in support of St. Hilaire's chief
doctrine of the tinivcrsal unity of plan of com-
position; this was his central life thouglit, leading
him to emphasize the resemblances rather than the
differences between animals, and to lay the founda-
tion of the study of 'parallelism' in develo])mcnt.
In this case he was illustrating his j^rinciple by the
supposed analogy between the organization of some
cephalopod molluscs and the vertebrates. It
seemed to Cuvier that these conclusions consti-
tuted a direct attack, and this brought on a discus-
sion of the questions which had been marking a

204 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

widening gap between the opinions of the two great
schools. Cuvier replied by a criticism of the posi-
tion of St. Hilaire as to this 'unity of plan,' and
rightly sought to demonstrate that there were
several distinct plans of animal organization. He
carefully analyzed the arguments brought forward,
and showed conclusively that in the types cited by
St. Hilaire the organs in their position gave evi-
dence simply of analogy and of resemblance, not
of a real unity of plan ; that these molluscs led to
no other types. Further, he said that St. Hilaire's
method contained nothing new, and reverted simply
to the views of Aristotle.

In following the details of this discussion, we
see that Cuvier was entirely correct in his facts,
and wrong in his principle ; while St. Hilaire was
wrong in his facts, and right in the principle which
he advocated. The effect was to drive Cuvier, who
issued with the greater eclat, into the extreme posi-
tion of recommending naturalists to confine them-
selves solely to the exposition of positive facts with-
out attempting to draw from them inductions.
This sharp issue, therefore, exerted a retarding
influence upon the progress of inquiry into Evo-
lution ; for Cuvier, in his brilliant lectures in the
College de France, threw increased weight against
the method and teachings of St. Hilaire, as he
had previously done against those of Lamarck.

BoRY DE Saint Vincent (i 780-1846) seems to
have been the only loyal successor of Lamarck ia

ST. VINCENT. 205

France. Like his leader, he was both a naturah'st,
and, for a time, an army officer. In the furmcr
capacity, he was, for a time, with the expedition
of Baudin. Quatrefages has given the following
sketch of his views :

In several papers, but especially in the article
* Creation ' of the Dictionnairc Classiqiic dc rilis-
ioire Naturelle, of which he was the editor, he
developed, in more than one point, the doctrines
of Lamarck, and drew from them conclusions which
belonged to himself.

Bory admits the spontaneous daily formation of
new species, not, it is true, upon our continents,
which have for a long time been peopled with both
animals and plants, but only in countries consid-
ered by him less ancient in formation. He cites,
for example, the island of Madagascar, which he
believes to have only recently issued from tlie sea,
under the influence of volcanic forces. According
to him, this island contains more "polymorphic
species than all the terra fijnna of the Old World."
On this relatively modern soil he says species are
not yet fixed. Nature, in hastening to constitute
the types, seems to have neglected to regulate the
accessory organs. On the other hand, in the con-
tinents more anciently formed, the develoj^nent of
plants has, perforce, followed an identical route for
an incalculable number of generations. The plants
have thus become arrested in their types, and do
not present the variations so frequent in new coun-

206 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

tries. Bory thus introduces a new idea in the
influence exercised on the fixation of specific char-
acters by the action of a long series of ancestors
placed under constant conditions. According to
him, this, so to speak, is habit exercising its powers,
not only on individuals, but even on species. But
in this conception, without being apparently aware
of it, he places himself in formal contradiction to
the master of whom he proclaims himself a disci-
ple. We have seen, in fact, that in the opinion of
Lamarck, all organized forms were being constantly
modified according to new needs, and it follows
that each generation was separated more and more
from its ancestors. While with Bory heredity would
have, as its result, the fixation of characters, with
Lamarck it is constantly causing them to vary,
by accumulating the little differences acquired in
each generation. In this point of view, Bory must
be regarded as an aberrant disciple of Lamarck.
The idea of Bory, of the fixation of characters by
heredity, was subsequently taken up and enlarged
by his countryman, Naudin.

Isidore St. Hilaire (1805-1861) serves us as a
mirror of the further recession of opinion from
transformism in France. The tide of hostile influ-
ence had set too strongly against the doctrine ; and
we find the son taking a still more conservative
position than his father, whom, nevertheless, he
loyally defended.

He advanced a theory of ' the limited variability

ISIDORE ST. HILAIRE. 20/

of species' (rather than of the mutability) in his
classic work, Histoire Generalc ct Particulurc
d'Aiiomalies de V Organization, 1832, and his
L Histoire Naturelle des Regnes Orgauiqucs. He
was undoubtedly swayed by the difficulty of finding
positive evidence for transformation, and furthc'r
by the negative evidence of the stability of species
afforded by the rich collections of mummied animals
brought back from Egypt. Thus, in his theory,
he dwelt upon the limited variability rather than
the mutability of species, believing in transmission
only to the point of forming a new race. This is
fully set forth in his Histoire Natiirclk (Vol. I.,
p. 431). At the conclusion of his review of the
history of opinion upon Evolution in France, he
gives it, as his own opinion, that characters are
neither actually fixed nor variable, both depending
upon the fixity or the variability of environment.
New characters are the resultant of two forces:
first, the modifying influence of new surroundings;
and, second, the conserving influence of Ileredilv.
When the former predominates, variations result,
such as are seen among savages and in the domes-
tication of animals. These variations amonij: ^vild
animals extend to modifications of colour and exter-
nal characters, but in domestication the differences
are much more marked. So much for changes
going on at the present time. As to past tinie, the
'theory of limited variability ' links itself with that
of * filiation,' or descent from analogous forms, as

208 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE.

opposed to that of Cuvier of ' successive creations,'
or of migration of existing species from other quar-
ters of the globe. He concludes by saying, very
guardedly, that this acceptance of the transmutation
theory rests upon the actual very limited state of
evidence.

It is another striking coincidence that in the
very year (1859) in which this passage was pub-
lished the Origin of Species appeared. The last
staQ:es of the decline of the main ' transmutation '
movement in France were coincident with its
sudden and final revival and estabHshment in
England.

VI.

DARWIN.

Es ist fur Menschen ungereimt, auch nur einen solchen Anschlag zu fassen.
Oder zu hoffen, dass noch etwa dereinst ein Newton aufstehen konne, dcr auch
nur die Erzeugung eines Grashalms nach Naturgesetzen, die keine Absichtgeordnct
hat, begreiflich machen werde, sondern man muss diese Einsicht dcm Menschen
schlechterdings absprechen. — Kant.

With Bory de St. Vincent and the younger St.
Hilaire the original movement in France, which
had begun with Buff on and extended over nearly
a hundred years, came to a close. In the mean-
time, from the early part of the century, the seed
had been scattering. In England, on the Conti-
nent, and in America, the Evolution theory found
here and there a friend who passingly restated,
or slightly expanded, views already expressed by
Buffon, Lamarck, Goethe, or Treviranus. Some
original ideas also sprang up in out of the way
quarters, and have been unearthed from ihcir
hiding-places since the theory has been estab-
lished; we must place them, as it were, in an
alcove of this history, because they certainly had
little or no direct connection with th.c main devel-
opment of the Evolution idea; they were not jnit
forth as part of a general system, and exerted no
influence upon either Darwin or Wallace.
p 209

210 DARWIN.

The First Half-Century.

Darwin, in his Historical Sketch of the Progress of
Opinion, and Haeckel, in his Schopfungsgeschichte^
have outlined the views of these miscellaneous con-
tributors to the Evolution theory. The most sur-
prising thought raised by a review of the original
works, and of the passages quoted by the above
authors, is that so many came near the theory and
were neither captured by it nor drawn on to its
further serious exposition as the key to the history
of life. Only one writer between 1809 and 1858
came out in a really vigorous and sustained defence
of the evolutionary system of the Universe. This
was the unknown author of the Vestiges of Creatio7i.

We are now familiar with the main sources of
suggestion, and can consider some of these writers
more critically than Darwin or Haeckel have done,
from the standpoint of originality. It would be
interesting to know whether^Wells, for example,
who so clearly set forth the Natural Selection
theory in 181 3, had seen any of the other 'antici-
pations ' which have been quoted. So with the two
other ' selectionists,' Matthew and Naudin. There
were a series of original writers who independently
approached Evolution upon the embryological side,
such as Meckel, Von Baer, and Serres. Others ad-
vocated or independently advanced the laws sug-
gested by Buffon, of modification due to the direct
action of environment under the influence of wide

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

21 I

geographical distribution. Among these were Her-
bert von Buch, Haldeman, and Schaafhausen llie
anthropologist. We find a partial revival of Goethe's
doctrines by the botanists Schleiden and Lecoq.

Lamarckism found very few followers. The
Greek idea of pre-existent germs of species was
revived by Keyserling. The Aristotelian notion of
an internal impulse or tendency towards progression
was more or less clearly revived by the ' })rogrcs-
sionists ' in the Vestiges of Creation and in Owen's
essay on the " Nature of Limbs."

Other writers who expressed a more or less pos-
itive belief in the mutability of species were : \'irey '
in 1817, Grant ^ in 1826, Rafinesquc^ in 1S36, Du-
jardin^ in 1843, d'Halloy'' in 1846. Chevreul'' and
Godron,^ in 1846 and 1847, advanced views some-
what similar to those of the younger St. Hilaire.
We note also Leidy in 1850, T. Unger, the bot-
anist, in 1852, Carus and Schaafhausen^ in 1S53,
Lecoq in 1854.^

Sachs has shown how the botanists Brown, Xageli,
and Hofmeister were approaching the theory.

1 Article " Especes," Diet. cV Hist. Naturelle de DctervilU.

2 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Vol. XIV., p. 283.

3 New Flora of North America, 1836, pp. 6, 18.

4 Ann. d. Sc. Nat., 3^ ser., t. IV., p. 279.

5 Bulletins de V Academic Roy. Bruxelles, torn. XIII., p. 581.

6 Considerations Generales sur les Variations des Individus. Mem. d. 1.
Soc. Roy. et Centr. d' Agriculture, 1846, p. 2S7.

7 De VEspece et des Races. Mem. d. 1. Societe d. Sciences do Nancy,
1847, P- 182. Published as a separate book in 1859.

8 Verb. d. Naturh. Ver. d. Preus. Rhein, Ueber Bcstlitidigkeit und Cm-
wandlung der Arten, Bonn, 1 853.

9 Etudes s. I. Geographic Botanique de V Europe, Paris, 1S54, p. 199-

2 1 2 DAR WIN.

The ExMbryologists.

Let us first glance at the embryologlsts. Meckel
(i 781-1833) followed Wolff (i 735-1 794) in the series
of German founders of Embryology. Wolff had
emphasized the transmutations of structure, so that,
from seeds on the one side and eggs on the other,
came the many and diverse organisms. Meckel
more clearly anticipated Von Baer in 181 1, in the
passage: "There is no good physiologist who has
not been struck, incidentally, by the observation
that the original form of all organisms is one and
the same, and that out of this one form, all, the
lowest as well as the highest, are developed in such
a manner that the latter pass through the perma-
nent forms of the former as transitory stages."

Von Baer, in 1834, in a lecture entitled "The
Most General Laws of Nature in all Development,"
maintained that : " Only in a very childish view of
Nature could species be regarded as permanent and
unchangeable types, and that, in fact, they can be
only passing series of generations, which have de-
veloped by transmission from the common origi-
nal form." (See Haeckel, Vol. L, p. 112.) Serres,
in his Precis d' Anatontie Transce^idente (1842,
p. 135), enlarged the arguments of Meckel, and
showed that the missinsf links in the chain of Evo-
lution may all be discovered, if we seek them, in
the life of the embryo. When we compare animals
arrived at their complete development, we find many

BUCH.

*> r ■?

21

differences between them ; but if wc compare them
during their successive stages of Evokition, we see
that these differences were preceded by resem-
blances ; that, in fact, Comparative Anatomy is an ar-
rested embryology, and Embryology is a transitory
comparative anatomy.

The Followers of Buffon.

Among those who took up, more especially, the
ideas of Buffon and Linnaeus, was the Rev. \\\ Her-
bert, in his work on the 'Amaryllidacccr' 1837,^ in
which he declares that "horticultural experiments
have established, beyond the possibility of refutation,
that botanical species are only a higher and more
permanent class of varieties " ; that single species of
each genus were created in an originally plastic con-
dition, and that these had produced, by intercrossing
and by variation, all our existing species. He
thus takes a point midway between Linnaeus and
Buffon.

Another Buffonian was Christl\n Leopold
VON BucH (i 773-1853), a well-known naturalist
and geologist. In 1836 he published an essay
entitled, "Physical Description of the Canary
Islands." We find that he is struck, like Hum-
boldt, with the problem raised by the geograj^h-
ical distribution of plants ; unlike the great traveller,
he does not hesitate, but proceeds to solve it. He
says : —

1 See also the fourth volume of the Horticultural Trattsactions, I'izi.

214 DARWIN.

" The individuals of genera on continents spread and widely
diffuse themselves; owing to differences of localities, nourishment,
and soil, they form varieties ; and in consequence of their isola-
tion and never being crossed by other varieties and so brought
back to the main type, they, in the end, become a permanent
and distinct species. Then, perhaps, in other ways, they meet
with other descendants of the original form, — which have likewise
become new varieties, — and both now become distinct species, no
longer mingling with one another. Not so on islands. Being
commonly confined in narrow valleys, or within the limits of small
zones, individuals can reach one another and destroy every com-
mencing production of a permanent variety."

We find in Von Buch a clear conception of the
force of Isolation or Segregation, which had been
observed by Buffon, as we have seen ; his theory
of Evolution is also that of the direct action of
environment, advocated by Buffon and St. Hilaire.

In 1844 {BosL Journ, Nat. Hist., 1843-44), Hal-
DEMAN gave a full discussion of the arguments for
and against the ' Lamarckian hypothesis,' in a paper
entitled " Enumeration of the Recent Fresh-water
Mollusca which are Common to North America
and Europe." He wrote, apparently, from Lyell's
exposition of Lamarck, rather than from the original
author himself. He inclined strongly to the trans-
mutation theory, although hesitating to offer a
direct opinion. As to the causes of modification,
he ignores Lamarck's special theory, and tends
rather to adopt Buffon's factor of the direct action
of the environment.

Herbert Spencer appeared as one of the few

CHAMBERS. 2 1 5

out-and-out evolutionists before the publication of
the Origin of Species. In his articles, '' Illoi^ical
Geology"^ and " The Development Hypr^thesis,"
he strongly contrasts the difficulties of the S})ecial
Creation hypothesis with the arguments fur devel-
opment. He does not enter into the ([uestion of
the factors of Evolution, although such passages as
the following might be interpreted as showing his
inclination to Buffon's theory: "... \w\ exist-
ing species, animal or vegetable, when placed under
conditions different from its previous ones, imme-
diately begins to undergo certain changes of struct-
ure fittine it for the new conditions. . . . Tliere is
at work a modifying influence of the kind they
assign as the cause of these specific differences."

The Progressionists.

The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
appeared in England, in 1844, — the only volume
wholly devoted to Evolution between the Philoso-
phie Zoologiqiie, and the Origin of Species. It was
published anonymously, but is now attributed to
Robert Chambers (1802-1871), because of his lib-
eral views and considerable knowledge of Geologv;
yet he never acknowledged the authorship which
still remains unclaimed. Although intelligently and
reverently written, it met a scathing reccj^ion from
the reviewers upon the score of false science and

1 These articles were republished in 1865, in an American edition of
Spencer's Essays, entitled, *' Illustrations of Universal Progress."

2l6 DARWIN.

infidelity. We may, in part, excuse the author for
preserving the somewhat in valorous incognito, when
we read in the North British Review : " Prophetic
of infidel times, and indicating the unsoundness
of our general education, the Vestiges has started
into public favour with a fair chance of poisoning
the fountains of science, and sapping the founda-
tions of religion." The great sensation which this
book caused, and its rapid sale, through ten edi-
tions in nine years, is proof that the truth of
Evolution was ready to burst forth like a volcano,
and that the times were ready for Darwin. The
volume w^as the strongest presentation of the scien-
tific evidences for Cosmic Evolution versus Special
Creation which had appeared. We find that the
author begins with the solar system ; his middle
point is the origin of life from inorganic matter,
and his final point is man as last in the develop-
ment of the animal kingdom. Of man's origin,
he says : —

" But the idea that any of the lower animals have been con-
cerned in any way in the origin of man — is not this degrading?
Degrading is a term expressive of a notion of the human mind,
and the human mind is liable to prejudices which prevent its
notions from being invariably correct. ... It has pleased Provi-
dence to arrange that one species should give birth to another,
until the second highest gave birth to man, who is the very high-
est : be it so, it is our part to admire and to submit."

The work shows the author's familiarity with
Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, St. Hilaire,

CHAMBERS. 2 I /

and Serres. In the first edition (p. 174), he rejects
Lamarck's hypothesis, "which has incurred much
ridicule and scarcely ever had a single defender,"
on the ground that the arbitrary modification of
form by the needs of the animal could never have
led to the unities and analogies of structure whicli
we observe. On the previous page, he advocates
(without credit) St. Hilaire's modification of Buffon's
hypothesis of the direct action of environment.
Light, heat, the chemical constitution of the at-
mosphere, he says, " may have been the immediate
prompting cause of all those advances from species
to species which we have seen, upon other grounds,
to be necessarily supposed as having taken place " ;
he continues that these ideas are merely thrown
out as hints towards the formation of a just hypoth-
esis which will come with advancino^ knowledsfe.
He considers these natural laws as instruments in
working out and realizing all the forms of being
of the original Divine Conception. These views
were more definitely expressed in the tenth edition,
which appeared in 1853 (p. 155). Here he gives
as his final opinion that the animal series is the
result, first, of an impulse, imparted by God,
advancing all the forms of life, through the various
grades of organization, from the lowest to the
highest plants and animals. (This is the Aristote-
lian ' internal perfecting principle ' somewhat dis-
guised.) As this first 'perfecting' impulse would
evidently produce types not fitted to their environ-

2 1 8 DAR WIN.

ment, the author adds a second impulse, tending to
modify organic structures in accordance with their
environment, food, nature of the habitat, meteoric
agencies, and thus to produce the ' adaptations '
of the natural theoloo:ian.

This progressive advance with modification would
also leave a gap at the bottom of the scale ; to fill
this up, the author, like Lamarck, supposes that
there is a continuous spontaneous generation of
the lowest forms of life, of primordial nucleated
vesicles, the meeting-point between the organic
and inorganic ; this generation he believes to be an
electro-chemical operation.

The author has been aptly termed a ' pro-
gressionist,' because of his belief in the inter-
nal perfecting or ' progressing ' principle. Owen,
and in a measure Louis Agassiz, should also be
classed as ' progressionists.'

Richard Owen (1810-1892), whose recent death
marked the last of the old school, was the leading
comparative anatomist of the world in the period
after Cuvier, with whom he studied.

He was not, however, a scientific successor of
Cuvier in a strict sense, but followed also St.
Hilaire and Oken in Philosophical Anatomy
and in a guarded acceptance of the transmuta-
tion theory. From Oken and Goethe he de-
veloped his famous, but now wholly discarded,
theory of the skull, as derived from the modifica-
tions of vertebrae ; the idea of archetypal or perfect

OWEN. 219

type forms as ancestral to modern, degenerate, or
vestigia] types, seems also to have been his cen-
tral thought in connection with Evolution. The
vast range of his knowledge in Comparative Anat-
omy and Osteology brought within his view series
of structures in all stages of usefulness, and espe-
cially those which were transitory or vestigial in
existing species, and persistent or well-developed
in extinct species. Thus in his essay on " The
Nature of Limbs," in 1849, he wrote: " The arche-
typal idea was manifested long prior to the exist-
ence of those animal species that actually exemplify
it"; and in the same work we find the followin^r
passage : " To what natural laws or secondary
causes the orderly succession and progression of
species may have been committed, we are, as yet,
ignorant." Again, in 1858, in his address before
the British Association, he spoke of the axiom " of
the continuous operation of creative power, or
ordained becoming of living things," — indicating
that his belief in the discovery of natural law was
limited by his belief in the continuous operation
of the supernatural law. He cited the Apteryx
of New Zealand especially, with its excessively
degenerate wings, as shaking our confidence in the
theory of Special Creation. It thus appears that,
prior to the publication of Darwin's work, Owen
was an evolutionist in a limited degree, somewhat
in the manner of Buffon ; that is, in holding to the
production of many modern species by modifica-

220 DARWIN.

tion, chiefly in the line of degeneration from older
and more perfect types. There is no evidence
whatever that he was an evolutionist in the large,
comprehensive sense of Lamarck.

Upon the publication of the Origin of Species,
Owen took an unfortunate position of hostility to
the evidences for the natural factors of Evolution
which Darwin sought to establish, and at the same
time claimed that he had long held a belief in
transmutation. In the preface of his Anatomy ofj
Vertebrates, published in 1866, we find the follow-
ing sentence : " Therefore, with every disposition to
acquire information and receive instruction, as to
how species become such, I am still compelled, as
in 1849, to confess ignorance of the mode of oper-
ation of the natural law or secondary cause of their
succession on the earth. But that it is an 'orderly
succession,' or according to law, and also ' pro-
gressive,' or in the ascending course, is evident
from actual knowledge of extinct species." He
then goes on to say that the basis of belief in the
succession and progression of species was laid by
the demonstration of the unity of plan as shown
in special and general homologies (Vicq d'Azyr
and St. Hilaire), by comparison of embryonic
stages of higher animals with the adult forms of
lower animals (Meckel, Von Baer), by the succes-
sion of species in time. He concludes : " How
inherited, or what may be the manner of operance
of the secondary cause in the production of species.

WELLS. 221

remains in the hypothetical state exemplified by
the guess-endeavours of Lamarck, Darwin, XWallace,
and others."

This attitude of hostility towards modern Evolu-
tion was apparently maintained throughout Owen s
life, and although he outlived Darwin, I am not
aware that he ever published his acceptance of
the theory. In some of his lectures he is said to
have held that a limited degree of degeneration
is due to disuse.

%

The Selectionists.

The modern theory of Natural Selection was ex-
pressed first by Dr. W. C. Wells, in 1813, then by
St. Hilaire the elder, then by Matthew, in 1831, and
finally, with considerably less clearness, if at all, by
Naudin, in 1852. Darwin gives us references to
the two English writers. That of Wells is the first
statement of the theory of the survival, not simply
of fittest organisms, as understood by previous
writers, such as Buffon and Treviranus, but of or-
ganisms surviving because of their possession of
favourable variations in single characters. Wells'
paper, read before the Royal Society in 1S13, was
entitled, " An Account of a White Female, part of
w^hose Skin resembles that of a Negro " ; it was not
published until 1818.^ He here recognizes the prin-
ciple of Natural Selection, as applied to the races

1 See his Two Essays upon the Dro) and Single Vision.

222 DAR WIN.

of men, and to the explanation of the origin of sin-
o[le characters. In Darwin's words : —

" After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity
from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals
tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists im-
prove their domesticated animals by selection ; and then, he adds,
but what is done in this latter cas^ by art seems to be done with
equal efficacy, though more slowly, by Nature, in the formation
of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit.
Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the
first few and scattered inhabitants of the middle redons of Africa,
some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases
of the country. This race would consequently multiply, while the
others would decrease ; not only from their inability to sustain the
attacks of disease, but from their incapacity of contending with
their more vigorous neighbours. The colour of this vigorous race
I take for granted, from what has been already said, would be
dark. But the same disposition to form varieties still existing, a
darker and a darker race would in the course of time occur ; and
as the darkest would be the best fitted for the climate, this would
at length become the most prevalent, if not the only race, in the
particular country in which it had originated."

This is certainly the most complete of all the
anticipations of Darwinism.

In 1 83 1 Patrick Matthew published a work en-
titled Naval Timber and Ar^boriculttire. It con-
tained, in an appendix, a brief statement of a theory '
of the origin of species of which Darwin says :
*' The differences of Mr. Matthew's views from mine
are not of much importance. He seems to consider
that the world was nearly depopulated at successive
periods, and then restocked, and he gives as an al-

NAUDIN. 223

ternative, that ' new forms may be generated without
the presence of any mould or germ of former aggre-
gates.' I am not sure that I understand some
passages; but it seems that he attributes some in-
fluence to the direct action of the conditions of hfe.
He clearly saw, however, the full force of the prin-
ciple of Natural Selection." Mr. Matthew was not
satisfied with this handsome recognition of his pri-
ority ; and is said to have placed on a subsequent
title-page, after his name, " Discoverer of the prin-
ciple of Natural Selection."

Charles Naudin, a veteran French botanist, is
the last of the French precursors of Darwin. He
followed Lamarck in the general transmutation doc-
trine, although he offered quite a different theory
of the causes of transmutation. In an article en-
titled " Philosophical Considerations upon Species
and Varieties," in the Revue Horticole (1S52, p. 102),
Naudin put forth his views upon the origin of spe-
cies, which were published with some reluctance
by the editors of that journal, because of their
heretical character, transmutation then being at
the height of its unpopularity. Quatrefages has
outlined Naudin's views very carefully, yet we can-
not perceive with him any evidence that Naudm
understood the selection theory. Naudin docs not
speculate upon the origin of life. He bases his
belief in transmutation upon 'unity of type,' as
proof, not of a preconceived plan, but of a comnKMi
parentage. From common sources existing species

224 DARWIN.

have issued through long intermediate series, and
the sum of their analogies and differences repre-
sents their greater or less remoteness from each
other and from the common source. From rela-
tively few primordial types, Nature has given birth
to all the organisms which people the globe. He
quite literally follows Lamarck's conception of filia-
tion as a branching system, but he widely departs
from Lamarck as to the causes of Evolution. With
Goethe, he sees in living organisms a 'plasticity'
which renders them susceptible to direct modifica-
tion by environment and opposes the conservative
power of Atavism, or hereditary transmission of
type. As with Bory de St. Vincent, he believes
that the younger primitive types presented greater
' plasticity,' but with advancing ages the forces of
heredity accumulated and became stronger.

Behind that ' plasticity ' and ' Atavism,' however,
Naudin places a higher power, — ' Finality, ' — a
mysterious force, which, he says, some would call
' fatality ' and others ' providence,' the continuous
action of which upon beings determines the form,
size, and duration of each species in relation to the
order of things of which it forms a part. The
natural species is a product, then, of Atavism and
of Finality. By Finality, Naudin evidently does not
imply an internal perfecting tendency in Nature,
but rather a continuous controlling principle above
the reign of secondary causes. Naudin evidently
felt the need of somethino: behind Natural Law in

NA UDIN.

22$

the production of the adaptations of Nature. The
following most interesting passage in Naudin's
paper, quoted below, is that in which Quatrefages
and Varigny believe that this author anticipated
the theory of Natural Selection : —

"We do not think that Nature has made her species in a
different fashion from that in which we proceed ourselves in order
to make our variations. To tell the truth, we have practised her
very method. When we wish, out of some zoological or botanical
species, to obtain a variety which answers to such or such of our
needs, we select {choisissons) out of the large number of the
individuals of this species, so as to make them the starting-point
of a new stirp, those which seem already to depart from the
specific type in the direction which suits us ; and by a rational
and continuous sorting of the descendants, after an undetermined
number of generations, we create types or artificial species, which
correspond more or less with the ideal type we had imagined, and
which transmit the acquired characters to their descendants in
proportion to the number of generations upon which our efforts
have been bearing. Such is, in our opinion, the method followed
by Nature, as well as by ourselves. She has wished to create
races conformable to her needs ; and with a comparatively small
number of primitive types, she has successively, and at different
periods, given birth to all the animal and vegetable species which
people the earth." . . .

We cannot find in this passage clear proof of
anticipation of Darwinism.^ The Survival of the
Fittest, as due to the possession of favourable varia-
tions, was evidently not in Naudin's mind; still less

iThis was Darwin's opinion after carefully studying Naudin's paper
in 1859: "I declare I cannot see a much c\oscx approach to Wallace and
me in Naudin than in Lamarck, — we all agree in modification and descent.
... But I cannot find one word like the struggle for Existence and Natural
Selection." {Life and Letters, ist ed. II., p. 247.)

Q

226 DARWIN.

is it in his system of Evolution as explained above.
A very careful reading of this passage shows that
in the comparison of methods pursued by man and
by Nature, his emphasis is plainly not upon the
natural selection but upon the natural succession
of types. Man causes types to succeed each other
artificially ; Nature also causes types to succeed
each other; he does not say that Nature selects
the fittest types. A single passage like this is
often very misleading ; we must always study the
author's whole context. A century earlier Buffon
had much more clearly expressed the idea of the
survival of the fittest species of plants.

In 1855 appeared an article^ by Alfred Russel
Wallace, " On the Law which has regulated the
Introduction of New Species." This contains a
very strong argument for the theory of descent,
as explaining the facts of classification, of distribu-
tion, and of succession of species in geological time
during the great changes upon the earth. Wallace
at this time showed himself a strong and fearless
evolutionist, although he had not apparently arrived
at his subsequent theory of the causes of change.

State of Opinion in the Mid-Century.

In all that has passed in these lectures the anti-
evolutionists have been kept in the background. Yet

"^Annals and Magazine of Natural History, September, 1855. Repub-
lished in 1870 in Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. A Series
of Essays. Macmillan & Co., London.

LYELL. 227

they formed the great working majority in numbers
and influence. By considering only the evolution-
ists, we have wholly lost the perspective of opinion
in the mid-century. This perspective must be re-
gained in order to appreciate the revolution of
thought brought about by Darwin.

Lyell, who believed in Natural Causation as part
of his doctrine of Uniformity, had been teaching
that, " as often as certain forms of animals and plants
disappeared, for reasons quite unintelligible to us,
others took their place by virtue of a causation,
which was quite beyond our comprehension." He
had carefully studied, and rejected, the Lamarckian
explanation. The very apologetic tone in which
Darwin himself confessed to Hooker, Lyell, and
Gray, in turn, his nascent belief in the mutability of
species, proves that he did not consider this belief as
an enviable or altogether desirable possession. " I
formerly spoke," he wrote, "to very many naturalists
on the subject of Evolution, and never once met with
any sympathetic agreement. It is probable that
some did then believe in Evolution, but thcv were
either silent, or expressed themselves so ambigu-
ously, that It was not easy to understand their mean-
ing." Later, after the completion of the Origin, lie
wrote: " If I can only convince Hooker, Lyell, and
Huxley that species are mutable " ; again, in reply to
Huxley's somewhat guarded acceptance of the
theory: "like a good Catholic who has received ex-
treme unction, I can now sing ' nunc diniitlis.

228 DARWIN.

Think now of convincing this high priest of Evo-
lution. In America, Asa Gray was one of the first
to espouse Darwin's cause.

In France, which we have found to be the home
of the modern theory for nearly a century, Evolu-
tion came as an unwelcome returning exile. As J
in England, opinion had finally become settled
upon the fixity of species. A proffered translation
of the Origin was contemptuously rejected by a
publishing firm in Paris. Darwin craved an open-
minded audience, which was almost impossible to
find on the Continent. " Do you know of any good
and speculative foreigners to whom it would be
worth while to send my book ? " he wrote to Huxley.
This is all by way of evidence of the well-known
fact that all the progress which had been made in
the long centuries we have been considering was,
for the time, a latent force. The Evolution idea,\
with the numerous truths which had accumulated
about it, was again almost wholly subordinate to
the Special Creation idea. ^

Darwin.

It is Impossible to give Darwin his true relief in
the brief limits of these outlines, that is, in propor-
tion to his actual work and influence, as compared
with his predecessors, and it is difiicult to say any-
thing about him which has not been better said be-
fore. We can, however, ask two questions which

DARWIN. 229

connect him with this history, and can be brought
into a stronger Hght than has been done hitherto.
First, how much did Darwin owe to the evolution-
ists who went before him ? Second, what was the
course of his own changing opinion upon the
factors of Evolution?

As to the first, he owed far more to the past than
is generally believed, or than he himself was con-
scious of, especially to the full and true conception
of the Evolution idea, which had already been
reached, to the nature of its evidences, and, to some
extent, to the line of its factors. Althoucrh antici-
pated by others, Darwin conceived, and worked
out, the theory of Natural Selection. WhaMie
owed to no one came from his crenius and his won-
derful application of the inductive method of search
after natural laws. Like Lamarck alone, among all
his predecessors, Darwin was early fired with the
truth of the idea and was equally ready to suffer
social and scientific ostracism in its pursuit.

Second, I will endeavour to trace the influences
which moulded Darwin's earlier and later opinions ;
how, starting with some leaning towards the theo-
ries of modification of Buffon and Lamarck, he
reached an almost exclusive belief in his own theory,
and then gradually inclined to adopt Buffon's,
and then Lamarck's theories as well, until in his
maturest writino^s he embraced a threefold causa-
tion in the origin of species. Namely, as first and
most important, the Darwin-Wallace factor of

c^^

230 DARWIN.

Natural Selection; second, as of considerable im^
portance, the E. Darwin- Lamarck factor of the in-
heritance of the effects of use and disuse ; third, as
still of some importance, the Buffon factor of the
direct action of the environment. Yet he reached
each of these factors, not so much through the
arguments advanced by their authors, as by his
own and by contemporary observations.

All this connects Darwin with the past; not by
way of diminishing his lustre, but of doing the
past justice. And now a word as to the method
which enabled him, in a single lifetime, to leap
along over the progress of centuries. The long
retention of his theory from publication marks the
contrast of his caution with the impetuousnessof__
Lamarck. He sought a hundred facts and obser-/
vations where his predecessors had sought qnej^V^
J}is_ilQ-tes filled volumes, and_he stajidg out as the
first evolutionist w^ho worked ' upon true Baconian
principles.' It was this characteristic which, com-
bined with his originality, w^on the battle for the
Evolution idea. As Canon Kingsley wTote toj
Maurice : " Darwin is conquering everywhere, and
rushing in like a flood by the mere force of truth
and fact." When the grandfather, Erasmus Dar-
win, held back at the inadequacy of his own theory
to explain the origin of adaptation in colour, he dis-
played the rare scientific temper which he trans-
mitted to the grandson. Krause has pointed out,
what is in fact most obvious, how largely the

DARWIN. 231

thoughts of these elder and younger evolutionists of
the same family ran in parallel lines. They seemed
to have inborn tendencies to look at Nature in the
same way.

Another cause of Darwin's success where all
others had failed was his life at a time when the
storehouse of facts was fairly bursting for want of a
generalization; the progress in every branch since
Lamarck's time had been prodigious. Again, even
this combination of temperament and circumstance
might have failed but for Darwin's rare education
from Nature upon the voyage of the Beagle. He
had gained little or nothing from the routine
methods of education in school and universitv,
as we learn in his own words: " My scientific tastes^
appear to have been certainly innate. ... I con-
sider that all I have learnt of any value has been ,
self-taught. . . . My innate taste for natural his-
tory strongly confirmed and directed by the voyage
of the Beagkr Humboldt's Personal lYarralire,
and Herschel's Introductioii to the Study of A\it2iral
Philosophy aroused his enthusiasm. His natural
taste for Geology, chilled by earlier teachers, was
revived during an excursion with Professor Sedg-
wick, from whom he learned " that science consists
in grouping facts so that general laws and conclu-
sions may be drawn from them." This was in
1831; and upon his return he entered upon his

' Voyage.'

His traininor for such an undertaking had

232 DARWIN.

been slight, and when we read what he saw
during these three years, between the age of
twenty-two and twenty-five, we realize the great-
ness of his genius. The procession of life in time
had already come passingly before him. He now
learnt for himself, first, the great lesson of uni-
formity of past and present causes, that for Nature
' time is nothing.' The rocks, the fossils, the life
of the continents and islands passed before his
mind like a panorama of that grand history which
had come singly and. in fragments to every evo-
lutionist preceding him. Only a few decades back,
Humboldt had taken a somewhat similar journey
in South America, and had written: "This phe-
nomenon " (the distribution of plants) " is one of
the most curious in the history of organic forms.
I say history, for in vain would reason forbid ma7z
to form hypotheses up07i the origin of things ; he
still goes on puzzling himself with insoluble prob-
lems relating to the distribution of beings." The
same phenomena came to Darwin's mind as the
greatest and most pressing for solution, and he
returned from this voyage determined to solve
the problem of the origin of species by induction.
There were but two theories to choose from, the
Special Creation theory, and the Transmutation
theory. He took them up w^ith an open mind.

Now let us see how the full-grown Evolution idea
had come to him. At the age of eighteen, while
in the University of Edinburgh, Darwin formed the

DARWIN. 233

acquaintance of Dr. Grant, who, on one occasion,
burst forth into high praise of the doctrines of
Lamarck. Darwin had even earlier read the Zoo-
noniia, but without receiving any effect from it.
"Nevertheless," he says, "it is probable that the
hearing, rather early in life, such views maintained
and praised, may have favoured my upholding them
in a different form in my Origin of Species^ It is
very evident from all Darwin's criticisms of Lamarck
that he never studied him carefully in the original,
so that all he owed at this time to his sfrandfather

o

and to Lamarck was the general idea of the evolu-
tion of life. Later, however, on the Beagle, he
took with him Lyell's Principles of Geology, in
which Lamarck's doctrines are admirably set forth
and fully discussed, so that there is little doubt that
the problem of transformation was, after all, most
strongly brought to him by Lamarck indirectly
through Lyell's able treatment. In 1834, during
the voyage, Darwin was still a special creationist,
yet the problem of mutability haunted him, as
it was brought home by the strong evidences of
change which met him on every side. He says : —

" I had been deeply impressed by the discovery in the Pampean
collection of great fossil animals covered with armour, like that on
the existing Armadillos ; secondly, by the manner in which closely
allied animals replaced one another in proceeding southwards over
the Continent ; and thirdly, by the South-American character of
most of the products of the Galapagos Archipelago, and more
especially by the manner in which they differed on each island of
the group, none of the islands appearing to be very ancient in a

234 DARWIN.

geological sense. It was evident that such facts as these, as well
as many others, could only be explained on the supposition that
species gradually became modified ; and the subject haunted me.
But it was equally evident that neither the action of the surround-
ing conditions,^ nor the will of the organisms ^ (especially in the
case of plants), could account for the innumerable cases in which
organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of
life ; for instance, the woodpecker or the tree frog to climb trees,
or a seed for dispersal, by hooks or plumes. I had always been
much struck by such adaptations ; and until these could be ex-
plained, it seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to prove by
indirect evidence that species have been modified."

It was after his return In 1837 that Darwin
opened his first note-book for the collection of facts
which bore in any way on variation in animals and
plants under domestication and in Nature. He
says : " I worked on true Baconian principles, and
without any theory collected facts on a wholesale
scale, more especially with respect to domesticated
products, by printed inquiries, by conversation with
skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive
reading." This is the most deliberate and rigid
instance of the application of the inductive method
which we have met with In our whole study of the
contributors to the Evolution theory. Darwin soon
saw the force of Selection as the secret of man's
success In forming useful races of animals and
plants; and in October, 1838, while reading Mal-
thus on population, the idea of Selection in a state
of Nature first occurred to him as the result of the

1 He here refers to Buffon's factor.

2 He here refers to and misconceives Lamarck's factor.

DARWIN. 235

Struggle for existence, or rather for life, between
different individuals and species. Four years later
he briefly set down his views, and in 1S44 he allowed
himself to wTite out his progress. He had already
reached the main line of aro^ument of his Oricrin
of Species, including the now familiar tripod of his
theory, Struggle, Variation, and Selection ; also his
principle of Sexual Selection, yet he attached much
more weight to the influence of external conditions
and to the inheritance of acquired habits than in
the Origin^ of 1859.

At this time Darwin naturally looked into the
literature of the subject, and was reading Geoffroy
St. Hilaire. He carefully read and abstracted
Haldeman's aro^uments for and aijainst the devel-
opment theory. He studied De Candolle upon geo-
graphical distribution, and Brown upon variation.
He w^as also fearful lest he should be classed with
Lamarck. He wrote to Hooker (Jan. ir, 1S44): —

"... I have now been, ever since my return, engaged in a
very presumptuous work, and I know no one individual who would
not say a very foolish one. I was so struck with the distribution
of the Galapagos organisms, etc., and with the character of the
American fossil mammifers, etc., that I determined to collect,
blindly, every sort of fact, which could bear in any way on what
are species. ... At last, gleams of light have come, and I am
almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion that I started
with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immuta-
ble. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a ' tendency

1 See Life and Letters, Vol. II., p. 14. This was Huxley's observation
upon this essay in reply to a request for a criticism from the editor. This
essay should be published.

Z36 DARWIN.

to progression,' ' adaptations from the slow willing of animals,'
etc. ! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different
from his ; though the means of change are wholly so." In another
place he wrote : *' Lamarck's work appeared to me to be extremely
poor; I got not a fact or idea from it."

By 1856, Darwin had sent Hooker his manu-
scripts. He had also, as a matter of greatest in-
terest to us in the development of his views, swung
entirely away from any sympathy with the theories
of Buffon and Lamarck, and had reached the ex-
treme position as to the powers of Natural Selection
which he continued to hold for some years. Several
passages show this : —

"... External conditions (to which naturalists so often appeal)
do, by themselves, very little. How much they do, is the point,
of all others, on which I feel myself very weak. I judge from
the facts of variation under domestication, and I may yet get
more light. . . . The formation of a strong variety or species I
look at as almost wholly due to the selection of what may be
incorrectly called ^chance '^ variations, or variability." As to the
powers of Natural Selection, he wrote to Lyell, in 1859 : " Grant a
simple archetypal creature, like the Mud-fish or Lepidosiren, with
the five senses and some vestige of mind, and / believe Natural
Selection will account for the productio7i of every vertebrate animal.^''

He was more cautious In publication, for In the
first edition of the Origin of Species, which appeared
in the same year, he said : " I am convinced that
Natural Selection has been the main, but not the
exclusive, means of modification."

In the use of ' chance,' Darwin recalls to mind the

^ His meaning in the use of the word * chance ' was not the ordinary one.
See 6th edition of the Origin, p. 121 : "I have sometimes spoken," etc.

DAR WIN.

237

old passage in Aristotle of the two alternatives in
our views of Nature. Darwin's standpoint was
different from either; by 'chance variations' he
refers to those occurring under unknown laws, not
under the ' blind fortuity ' of Empedocles, nor under
the 'progressive principle ' of Aristotle. He found
no evidence for an internal perfecting principle.
In connection with the first edition of the Orient.
Tie wrote: "The so-called improvement of our
short-horn cattle, pigeons, etc., does not presuppose
or require any aboriginal ' power of adaptation,'
or ' principle of improvement.' If I have a second
•edition, I will reiterate ' Natural Selection,' and as
a general consequence, ' Natural Improvement.' "

He mistakenly attributed to Lamarck the view
held by the author of the Vestiges, when he disavowed
holding " the Lamarckian or Vestigian doctrine of
■* necessary progression,' that is, of progression inde-
pendent of conditions." This is further shown in
his correspondence concerning Nageli. (/-{/t' (^^^^^
Letters, Vol. III., p. 49, letter to Victor Carus, 1S66) :
*' I am, however, far from agreeing with him tliat
the acquisition of certain characters whicli appear
to be of no service to plants, offers any great diffi-
culty, or affords a proof of some innate tendency
in plants towards perfection."^ This standpoint

1 Nageli, a distinguished German botanist, believed that he found in his
studies of the Evolution of plants, proofs of the existence of an internal
perfecting principle in life, by which, independently of all outside agencies,
the Plant Kingdom is constantly tending to a higher degree of perfection.
These views were published in 1865. Somewhat similar views have been
advanced by Baer, KoUiker, and others.

2^8 DARWIN.

is further brought out in Darwin's very interesting
correspondence with Asa Gray upon the evidence
for Design in Nature : " I cannot think the world,
as we see it, is the result of chance ; and yet I
cannot look at each separate thing as the result of
Design. To take a crucial example, you lead me
to infer that you believe ' that variation has been
led along certain beneficial lines.' I cannot believe
this." ^ Again : " I must think that it is illogical
to suppose that the variations, which natural selec-
tion preserves for the good of any being, have been
designed." In still another passage:" "I am in-
clined to look at everything as resulting from
designed laws, with the details, whether good or
bad, left to the working out of what we may call
' chance.' Not that this notion at all satisfies me."
This makes sufficiently clear Darwin's opinions
at this time upon the theories of all his predeces-
sors except one, namely, St. Hilaire. Huxley, in
his early correspondence upon the Origin of Spe-
cies, tried to convince Darwin of the possibility of
occasional rapid leaps or changes in Nature, anal-
ogous to those which St. Hilaire had advocated,
although Huxley probably did not have this author
in mind nor contemplate any great extremes of
transformation. Darwin held to his original prop-
osition, handed down from Leibnitz : ' Natura non
facit saltu7n', concluding : " It would take a great

1 Life and Letters, Vol. II., p. 353, and p. 378.

2 Life and Letters, Vol. II., p. 312.

DARWIN. 239

deal more evidence to make me admit that forms
have often changed per salttimr ^

The idea of the Survival of the Fittest came to
Darwin only through the suggestion of Malthus,
who, in turn, probably borrowed it from Buffon.
He was unaware of any of the distinct anticipa-
tions of his theory. His attention was called to
Matthew's article in i860; to that of Wells in
1865; to Naudin's paper in 1859. Some one,
also, called his attention to Aristotle and Em-
pedocles. It is possible that his eye may have
caught the passage in St. Hilaire suggesting the
idea, without his conscious recollection of it. The
strong passage in Erasmus Darwin's poem may also
have survived in his memory, yet as far as Dar-
win knew, the idea of the ' struggle for life ' came
first from Malthus; it grew upon him in reading
De Candolle, W. Herbert, and Lyell, of whom he
said, " Even they have not written strongly enough."
The force of this 'struggle ' gradually intensified itself
in his mind to a point where he believed it was such
that not merely the entire adaptive form of the ani-
mal, but even a slight adaptive variation in a single
character, w^ould turn the scale in favour of survival !
This was during the period of his extreme faith
in the Natural Selection factor, which reached its
highest point about 1858. He gradually receded
from this extreme, as shown in a letter to Victor
Cams in 1869: ". . . I have been led to infer

1 Life and Letters, Vol. II., p. 274 (1S60).

240 DAR WIN.

that single variations are of even less importance,
in comparison with individual differences, than I
formerly thought." He here refers to the aggre-
o^ate of distinction between two forms.

This reaction was accompanied by a slow change
of mind towards the Lamarckian factor of the
inheritance of the effects of use and disuse. This
was brought about, apparently, not through a re-
newed study of the Philosophie Zoologique, but by
Darwin's own observations upon the domesticated
animals, especially in his records of structures
which were developing and degenerating entirely
apart from the main course of the artificial selec-
tion of breeders, as well as from the weight of
utility or usefulness in the scale of survival in
Nature. He may have been influenced also by the
thorough Lamarckism of Herbert Spencer, although
this does not appear in the Life and Letters.

Darwin's gradual recession from his exclusion
of the Buffon- St. Hilaire factor also evidently
began in course v of the preparation of his great
work upon ' Variation.' He was influenced by his
own wider range of observation, and, later, by the
observations of Wagner, of Allen, and others. As
early as 1862 he wrote to Lyell {Life and Letters,
Vol. n., p. 390): —

" I hardly know why I am a little sorry, but my present work is
leading me to believe rather more in the direct action of physical
conditions. I presume I regret it, because it lessens the glory of
Natural Selection, and is so confoundedly doubtful. Perhaps I

DARWIN. 241

shall change again when I get all my facts under one point of
view, and a pretty hard job this will be."

Fourteen years later, Darwin had positively in-
cluded Buffon's factor among the causes of Evolu-
tion. In 1876 he wrote to Moritz Waener : —

"When I wrote the Origin, and for some years afterwards, I
could find little good evidence of the direct action of the environ-
ment ; now there is a large body of evidence, and your case of
the Saturnia is one of the most remarkable of which I have heard."

In 1878 he fully included^ Wagner's theory as
one cause of origin of species, through the direct
action of environment in the same country or
through geographical isolation. In 1877 he also
wrote to Morse : " I quite agree about the high
value of Mr. Allen's works, as showing how much
change may be expected apparently through the
direct action of the conditions of life." There is
thus no doubt that the idea of Natural Selection,
as almost the sole factor, came to a climax in Dar-
win's mind and then gradually appeared less im-
portant and exclusive. In preparing his work on
' Variation,' the importance of the problem of
heredity came before him, and in writing to Mux-
ley, in 1865,^ he gives a 'brief of his point of view
at the time, in concisely stating what a working
theory of heredity should embrace : —

"The case stands thus: in my next book I shall publish long
chapters on bud and seminal-variation, on inheritance, reversion,

1 Letter to Semper, Life and Letters, Vol. III., p. 1 60.

2 Life and Letters, Vol. III., p. 44.

242 DARWIN.

effects of use and disuse, etc. I have also, for many years,
speculated on the different forms of reproduction. Hence it
comes to be a passion with me to try to connect all such facts
by some sort of hypothesis."

Here, again, Darwin reached independently an
hypothesis which had been already formulated by
Buffon, Maupertuis, and foreshadowed by Democri-
tus and Hippocrates. Concerning Buffon's unex-
pected anticipation, he wrote to Huxley, to whom
he had submitted his manuscript : —

^' I have read Buffon : whole pages are laughably like mine.
It is surprising how candid it makes one to see one's views in
another man's words. . . . Nevertheless, there is a fundamental
distinction between Buffon's views and mine. He does not sup-
pose that each cell or atom of tissue throws off a little bud. ..."

Among Darwin's last words upon the factors of
Evolution are those in the sixth edition of the
Origin of Species (1880, p. 424). In the modi-
fication of species he refers as causes, successively
to his own, to Lamarck's, and to Buffon's factor in
the followino^ clear lansruaQ^e: "This has been
effected chiefly through the natural selection of
numerous, successive, slight, favourable variations;
aided in an important manner by the inherited
effects of the use and disuse of parts ; and in an un-
important manner — that is, in relation to adaptive
structures, whether past or present — by the direct
action of external conditions, and by variations
which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spon-
taneously." Later, in the Descent of Man (1881,

DARWIN AND WALLACE. 243

p. 32), he speaks of the effects of use as probably
becoming hereditary, showing that he still did not
consider the evidence as convincing as that relat-
ing to disuse [loc, cit., p. 32). " The chief agents
in causing organs to become rudimentary seem
to have been disuse, at that period of life when the
organ is chiefly used (and this is generally during
maturity), and also inheritance at a corresponding
period of life." It should be repeated that these
decided changes of opinion were, in part, a tacit
acceptance of work done elsewhere, especially in
Germany, rather than the direct outcome of Dar-
win's own observations. In part they certainly
reflected his own observations and maturer judg-
ment.

Darwin and Wallace.

Finally, we record the most striking of all the
many coincidences and independent discoveries in
the history of the Evolution idea. Darwin's long
retention of his theory from publication between
1837 and 1858 came near costing him his eminent
claims to priority ; for in the latter year Alfred
Russel Wallace had also reached a similar theorv.
By the happy further coincidence of a friendship,
which always remained of the most generous order,
Wallace sent his freshly completed manuscript to
Darwin. But for his friends Hooker and Lyell,
Darwin would even then have held back his work.
By their co-operation, two modest papers appeared

244

DARWIN.

in \}v^^ Journal of the LinncEaii Society, June 30, 1858,
the first consisting of an abstract of Darwin's manu-
scripts of 1839 and 1844, from the second part,
entitled " On the Variation of Organic Beings in a
State of Nature; on the Natural Means of Selec-
tion ; on the Comparison of Domestic Races and
True Species"; also the letter of 1857 to Asa
Gray. The second consisted of the paper by Wal-
lace, written in February, 1858, entitled "On the
Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from
the Original Type."

The line of thought in these two papers is almost
directly parallel, as shown in these columns: —

Darwin.

There is in Nature a struggle
for existence, as shown by Mal-
thus and De Candolle.

Rapid muhiplication, if un-
checked, even of slow-breeding
animals like the elephant . . .

Great changes in the environ-
ment occur.

It has been shown in a former
part of this work that such changes
of external conditions would, from
their acting upon the reproductive
system, probably cause the or-
ganization ... to become plastic.

Can it be doubted that . . .
any minute variation in struct-
ure, habits, or instincts, adapting
that individual better to the new
conditions, would tell upon its
vigour and health ?

Wallace.

The life of wild animals is a
struggle for existence ... in which
the weakest and least perfect must
always succumb.

Even the least prolific of ani-
mals would increase rapidly if
unchecked.

A change in the environment
may occur.

(No cause of variation as-
signed.)

Varieties do frequently occur
spontaneously.

All variations from the typical
form have some definite effect,
however slight, on the habits or
capacities of the individuals.
Abundance or rarity of a species
is dependent on its more or less

DARWIN AND WALLACE. 245

In the struggle it would have a perfect adaptation. If any species

better chance of surviving; and should produce a variety having

those of the offspring who inher- slightly increased powers of pre-

ited the variation, be it ever so serving existence, that variety

slight, would also have a better must inevitably in time acquire a

chance. superiority in numbers.

Remarkable as this parallelism^ is, it is not com-
plete. The line of argument is the same, but the
poi7it d'apptii is different. Darwin dwells upon
variations in single characters, as taken hold of by
Selection ; Wallace mentions variations, but dwells
UYton full-formed varieties, as favourably or unfavour-
ably adapted. It is perfectly clear that with Darwin
the struggle is so intense that the chance of sur-
vival of each individual turns upon a single and
even slight variation. With Wallace, Varieties are
already presupposed by causes W'hich he does not
discuss, a change in the environment occurs, and
those varieties w^hich happen to be adapted to it
survive. There is really a wdde gap between these
two statements and applications of the theory.

Unlike Darwin, Wallace has conserved his earlier
views entire ; he is still a rigid Natural Selection-
ist, and has incorporated the extreme views of Dar-
win upon the importance of variations in single
characters. As one of the leaders of thought in
contemporary Evolution, Wallace belongs chiefly
to the after-Darwin period.

1 A further striking feature in this parallelism of thought is that W^allace,
like Darwin, first caught the suggestion of the struggle for existence from
reading Malthus.

246 BAR WIN.

Retrospect.

Now that we have brought together the evi-
dences, our difficulty Hes in choosing the via media
between an overestimate and an underestimate of
actual continuity.

From the ' formless masses ' of the thought of
Empedocles we have traced Evolution to its per-
fect expression by Darwin. The metaphysical en-
vironment of the idea has been seen shaping itself
in the better understanding of the relations of Causa-
tion, Design, and Creation, while the natural en-
vironment has been seen expanding with the
biological sciences. Two of Aristotle's principles,
midway between physics and metaphysics, seem to
have exerted a great and often misleading influence.
I refer first to his ' perfecting tendency ' which led
Leibnitz and all his naturalist and speculative
followers away from the search for a natural cause
of Adaptation ; and second, his ' unity of type,'
which, as finally developed in the mind of St. Hilaire
and Owen, proved to be a compromise between
Special Creation and Evolution.

The idea of Evolution, rooted in the cosmic evo-
lution and ' movement ' of Heraclitus and Aristotle,
has passed to the progressive development and
succession of life seen in Empedocles, Aristotle,
Bruno, Descartes, Goethe, and in the more concrete

RETROSPECT. 247

* mutability of species ' of Bacon, Leibnitz, Buffon,
Lamarck, and St. Hilaire.

The direct transition from the inoro^anic to the
organic is seen to have had a host of friends, nearly
to the present time, including, besides all the Greeks,
Lucretius, Augustine, Maillet, Buffon, Erasmus
Darwin, Lamarck, Treviranus, Oken, and Chambers-
Then we have seen the difficulty of ' origin ' removed
one step back by the ' pre-existent germs ' of Anaxa-
goras, revived by Maillet, Robinet, Diderot, and
Bonnet. Again, the rudiments of the monistic idea
of the psychic properties of all matter, foreshadowed
by Empedocles, are seen revived by Maupertuis and
Diderot. The difficulty of origin has been avoided
by the assumption of primordial minute masses,
which we have seen developed from the ' soft germ '
of Aristotle, to the ' vesicles ' and ' filaments ' of
Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, Oken, and
finally into our primordial protoplasm.

To the inquiry : Where did life first appear ? we
find the answer, ' in the sea,' given by Thales,
Anaximander, and Maillet; 'between sea and land,'
is the answer of Anaximenes, Diogenes, Democritus,
and Oken; 'from the earth,' is the solitary reply of
Lucretius. Now we are too wise to answer it. For
the succession of life we have followed the ' asccnd-
ino; scale ' of Aristotle, Bruno, Leibnitz, and others,
until Buffon realized its inadequacy, and Lamarck
substituted the simile of the branching tree. Of
man as the summit of the scale, and still in process

248 DAR WIN.

of becoming more perfect in his endowments, we
learn from Empedocles, Aristotle, Robinet, Diderot,
Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Treviranus.

Man's origin and descent has always been of the
first interest to man himself. The idea of his slow
development is suggested by the crude observation
of Anaximander, and takes its more scientific form
in Lucretius, Bruno, and Leibnitz. Man's relation
to other primates as a result of evolution is de-
veloped by Bruno, Leibnitz, Buffon, Kant, Herder.
Bruno perceives the importance of the tool-bearing
hands, and most interesting is the appreciation by
Buffon, Helvetius, and Erasmus Darwin, that the
opposition of the thumb, rendering its bearers fittest
to survive, may have originated as a happy accident.

Of the greatest moment of all, is our pursuit of
the problem of Adaptation as it first presented itself
to Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxagoras; and
second, as it became connected with Causation
in the minds of Aristotle, Buffon, Kant, Erasmus
Darwin, Goethe, and Charles Darwin. Around the
solution of this problem we have seen centre the
development of four conceptions ; namely^_o£j en-
vironment,' ' struggle for existence,' ' variation,' and
' survival of the fittest.'

We have seen first how ideas of Adaptation
in immutable types were recast into the grander
Adaptation in mutable types under changing en-
vironment ; also how the full modern conception of
Adaptation slowly arose through philosophical

RETROSPECT. 249

Anatomy and Embryology, as pursued by Buffon,
Kant, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, Goethe, Trevi-
ranus, St. Hilaire, and Serres. The significance of
'degeneration' and of 'vestigial structures' mean-
while grew clear in the interpretations of Sylvius,
Buffon, Kant, Goethe, and Lamarck.

' Environment' as a transforming factor was ap-
parently observed late, for we have seen it first de-
velop in the writings of Bacon, Maillet, Buffon, Kant,
Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, Treviranus, St. Hilaire,
St. Vincent, Buch, and others. The 'strucrcde for
existence ' we have traced to Anaximander, and
more clearly in its bearing upon feeding and propa-
gation, to Empedocles and Lucretius. Buffon and
Malthus greatly developed it afresh, while Erasmus
Darwin, Treviranus, De Candolle, and others gave
it its modern form. ' Variation ' is of seventeenth
century origin, at least when considered parti \' as
evidence of, partly as a factor in. Evolution ; we
have seen it treated by Bacon, Leibnitz, INLaupertuis,
Lamarck, and St. Hilaire, terminating with its full
exposition in the first half of the century as a link
of Darwinism.

The broad conception of fortuitous combinations
and of accidental variations in relation to Survival
and hence to Adaptation, is found to be one of the
most ancient scientific ideas of which we have record
in history. It is seen to follow two lines. The first
is the survival of the fittest forms or types of life,
considered as a whole, as a collection of similar

250 DARWIN.

individuals, or as a ' variety ' in modern terms. This
we have seen originate with Empedocles and receive
the support of Epicurus and Lucretius, and much
more recently of Hume, Diderot, and others. In
its relation to modern Evolution, we see it brought
out afresh by Buffon, Malthus, Kant, Wells, Mat-
thew, and Wallace. The second line is the survival
of certain types, because of the possession of some
fortuitously adaptive combination of parts or of
some favourable variation in a single organ. This
conception we also trace from Diderot back to
Empedocles ; but it is apparently a spontaneous
and independent discovery as we find it in Buffon
.and Helvetius, who transmit it to Erasmus Darwin,
w^ Finally, it is again rediscovered, or grandly evolved
by induction and observation by Charles Darwin,
who raises it to its present magnitude as a central
principle in the living world.

An entirely distinct line of thought is that of
Erasmus Darwin and of Lamarck that life itself is
a process of adaptation to new conditions and that
the adaptive changes acquired in course of life are
transmitted and accumulated in successive genera-
tions. This is a theory for adaptations of certain
kinds which awaits further proof.

It is also for the future to determine whether
the predecessors of Darwin and Darwin himself, in
the principle to which he gave a life of thought,
have fully answered the old, old problem, or whether
we shall look for still another Newton in our phi-
losophy of Nature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

For the general succession of evolutionists, in Philosophy
especially, the student is referred to Huxley in his article " Evolu-
tion " in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, to Haeckel in his History of
Creation, and to Schultze in his Philosophie der Natiirwissen-
schaft. Upon the long discussion of the problem of the mutability
of species which occurred between the time of Linnaeus and of
St. Hilaire, by far the best work is Isidore St. Hilaire's Histoire
Naturelle Generate. I have also depended largely upon the full
and critical studies of the French evolutionists by Perrier, Qua-
trefages, Martins, Varigny, Lanessan. The German natural phi-
losophers and poets have been explored for their Evolution
tendencies in special studies by Schultze, Barenbach, and Haeckel.
Goethe especially has been searched with rich results. We owe
to Germany, also, Krause's Life of Erasmus Darwin. To the
English writers we owe the articles already mentioned, a number of
biographies in the Britannica, Darwin's outline in his introduction
of the Origin of Species, F. Darwin's Life and Letters of Charles
Darwin, and the vigorous interchange of opinions upon Evolu-
tion in theological literature between Huxley and Mivart. In
this country Packard has contributed an article to the Standard
Natural History, but Lamarckism in America is a subject which
still deserves careful study.

Zeller has given us the most critical and reliable studies of the
early or pre- Aristotelian Greek evolutionists. For the later Greek
period, I have referred to the general works of Lange anil l-^rd-
mann; and to the special studies of Cotterill, Moore, Guttler,
Brunnhofer, and others for the later Greek and Mediaeval perio<l.
Lewes' Aristotle is a mine of information, yet the author strangely

251

252 BIBLIO GRAPH Y.

enough wholly fails to appreciate or bring forward Aristotle's
important contributions to the Evolution idea. In fact, Aristotle
has been generally ignored in this connection.

General Articles and Works.

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire : ' Histoire Naturelle Generale des

Regnes Organiques/ Paris, 1 844-1 862. 3 vols.
Huxley, Thomas H.: 'Evolution.' Enc. Britannica, Vol. VIII.,

PP- 744-772.
Haeckel, Ernst : 'NatUrliche Schopfungsgeschichte.' ist ed., 1868.

4th ed., 'The History of Creation' (translation), 1892.

2 vols.
Erdmann : ' History of Philosophy.' 3 vols. Swann, Sonnenschein

& Co., London.
Lange: 'History of Materialism.'
FiSKE : ' Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy.'
Schultze, Fritz : ' Philosophie der Naturwissenschaft.' Leipsic,

1881. 2 vols.
Packard, A. S. : Introduction to the ' Standard Natural History.'

Boston, 1885.

*

The Greek Period.

Zeller, Edward : ' History of the Greek Philosophy.'

' Ueber die Griechischen Vorganger Darwin's.' Abhand.

d. Berliner Akad., 1878, p.
Lewes, G. H.: 'Aristotle; a Chapter in the History of Science.'

London, 1864.
Aristotle, Works of. Taylor's translation. 6 vols.
G. Pouchet: ' La Biologie Aristotelique.' Paris, 1885.
Romanes, George J.: 'Aristotle as a Naturalist.' Contemporary

Review, 1891.
Cotterill, Henry : ' Does Science aid Faith in Regard to Creation? '

London, 1883.
Moore, Aubrey : ' Science and Faith.'
Guttler, C. : ' Lorenz Oken und sein Verhaltniss zur Modernen

Entwickelungslehre.' Leipsic, 1884.
Brunnhofer: 'Giordano Bruno's Welt Anschauung.' Leipsic, 1882.
Huxley, T. H.: 'Critiques and Addresses.' London, 1883.
MiVART, St. George: 'On the Genesis of Species.' London, 1871.

'Lessons from Nature.' London, 1876.

BIB LI 0 GRAPH Y. 253

The Natural PJiilosopJiers and Speculative Evolutionists.

Bacon: 'Novum Organum and Advancement of Learning.' Bohn

Edition.
ScHULTZE, Fritz : - Kant und Darwin, ein Beitrag zur Ge.schichte der

Entwickelungslehre.' Jena, 1875.
Barenbach, Friedrich von : ' Herder als Vorganger Darwin's und

der Modernen Naturphilosophie ' Berlin, 1877.
De Maupertuis, Peter Louis Moreau : 'Syst6me de la Nature.*

Paris, 1 75 1.
De Maillet, M. : 'Telliamed ou Entretiens d\m Philosoplie Indien

sur la diminution de la Mer, avec un Missionaire Franc^ais.'

Basle, 1749. 2^'"« ed. Paris, 1754. 2 vols.
Lewes, G. H. : 'A Precursor of the Vestiges.'' (Robinet.)
Eraser's Magazine, November, 1857, pp. 526-531.
Robinet, J. B. : '• Considerations Philosophiques de la Gradation Natu-

relle des Formes de I'etre, ou, les Essais de la Nature qui

apprend a faire rHomme.' Paris, 1768.
Varigny, Henri de : ' La Philosophie Biologique aux xvii*^ et xviii*

Siecles.' Revue Scientifique, Aug. 29, 1889, pp. 226-234.
'Experimental Evolution.'' London, 1892.
Descartes, Rene: ' Principes de la Philosophie.' Paris, 1637.
Ducasse: ' Etude Historique et Critique sur le Transformisme.' Paris.
Bonnet, C. : 'La Palingenesie Philosophique, ou Id^es sur I'Etat pass^

et sur TEtat futur des f^tres Vivants.' Geneva, 1770."

2 vols.
Duret, Claude : ' Histoire Admirable des Plantes et Herbes esmer-

veillables et miraculeuses en Nature' .... Paris, 1609.
Oken, Lorenz: 'Elements of Physiophilosophy ' (translation). Lon-
don, Ray Society, 1847.
Morley, John : ' Dider6t and the Encyclopaedists.' London.

The French Evolutionists.
M.J. de Lanessan: 'Buffon et Dar\vin.' Revue Scientifique, 1889.

1°, pp- 385-391 ; 2°, pp. 425-432-

Edmond Perrier: 'La Philosophie Zoologique avant Darwin.' 2«"'*
ed. Paris, 1886. (Bibl. Scient. Internal. , XLVII.)

A. de Quatrefages : ' Darwin et ses Prdcurseurs Frangais, Etude sur
le Transformisme.' Paris, 1892. (Bibl. Scient. Internal.,
LXXV.)

254 BIBLIO GRAPHY.

Lamarck, J. B. P. A. de: ' Recherches sur TOrganization des Corps
Vivants/ Paris, 1802.

* Philosophie Zoologique.' Paris, 1809. Edition, Charles

Martin's. Paris, 1873. 2 vols.

* Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertebras.' 2^™^ ed.

Paris, 1835-1845. II vols.
St. Hilaire, Geoffroy : ' Principes de Philosophic Zoologique.*

Paris, 1830.
St. Hilaire, Isidore : ' Vie de Geoffroy St. Hilaire.' Paris.

The English and Ger7nan Evolutionists.

Darwin, Erasmus: ^Zoonomia; or, the Laws of Organic Life.'

London, 1794. 2 vols.
^The Botanic Garden,' 1788.

'The Temple of Nature.' London, 1803. (Posthumous.)
Krause, Ernst, and Darwin, Charles: 'Erasmus Darwin.' Lon^

don, 1879.
Treviranus, Gottfried Reinhold : ♦ Biologic oder Philosophic der

lebenden Natur.' Gottingen, 1802. 6 vols.
' Erschcinungen und Gcsctze des Organischen Lebens.'*

Bremen, 183 1. 2 vols.
Kalischer, S. : 'Goethe und Darwin' in 'Wage,' Nr. 11 and 12.

Berlin, 1876.
Haeckel, Ernst : ' Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe, und

Lamarck.' Jena, 1882.
Darwin, Charles: 'Origin of Species.' 6th ed. London, 1880.
Darwin, Francis: 'Life and Letters of Charles Darwin.' London,

1888. 3 vols.

INDEX.

Abiogenesis, among the Greeks, 23, 27 ;
Anaximenes, 35; Diogenes, 36;
Xenophanes, 36 ; Empedocles, 37 ;
Democritus, 42; Aristotle, 48; Epi-
curus, 60 ; Lucretius, 62 ; theory of,
in relation to Creation, Augustine,
71; Maillet, 112; Oken, 126, 127;
E. Darwin, 140 ; Lamarck, 178 ; Tre-
viranus, 192; St. Vincent, 205 ; Cham-
bers, 218. Between water and land,
Anaximander, 34; Xenophanes, 36.
Direct transition frotn inorganic mat-
ter, Aristotle, 48. Marine, Thales,
33; Anaximander, 34; Maillet, no.
Terrestrial slime, or earth and water,
Anaximenes, 35 ; Diogenes, 36 ; De-
mocritus, 42; Oken, 125. Terrestrial,
direct from the soil, Lucretius, 62.

Abubacer, Oriental romances upon ' Na-
ture Man,' 77.

Acquired characters,transmission of,Aris-
totle, 46; Sylvius, 26; rapid acqui-
sition, Maillet, no; E, Darwin, 145-
148; Lamarck, 165 -171; Goethe,
186; Darwin, 240.

Adaptation, problem of, in organisms,
Empedocles, 39; in single struct-
ures, Democritus, 42; in relation to
intelligent design, Anaxagoras, 42;
causes of, Aristotle, 52-56; Kant,
100; E. Darwin, 150; Goethe, 186;
Chambers, 218 ; Darwin, 234.

Analogy in structure, Aristotle, 24,

Anatomy, Greek, 34; revival of, 86;
comparative, Buffon, 132; Kant,
loi ; philosophical. Herder, 104;
Schelling, 104 ; comparative, Goethe,
184; philosophical, St. Hilaire, 203;
relation to embryology, Serres, 213 ;
philosophical, Owen, 218.

Anaxagoras, Adaptation and Design,
42 ; germs of life, 42.

Anaximander, his natural philosophy, 33.

Anaximenes, his natural philosophy, 35.

Aquinas, exposition of Augustine, 75.

Arabs, the natural philosophy of, 75-77.

Archcesthetism, influence of desires
and wants of animals ; upon struct-
ure, Aristotle, 49; E. Darwin, 147;
Lamarck, 169; Darwin 236.

Aristotle, relation to his predecessors,
43 ; works, 45 ; principal contribu-
tions, 45; heredity, 46; errors, 47;
progressive development, 48 ; on
'movement,' 48; teleology, 51; form
and matter, 53 ; on fortuity, 53 ; on
' design,' 54; on survival of the fittest,
55; on primordial germs, 56; his
successors, 58 ; opposed by theolo-
gians, 78.

Augustine, upon science and religion,
19; potential creation, 71; abiogene-
sis, 72; upon cosmic Evolution, 73,
74 ; upon organic Evolution, 73 ; op-
posed by Suarez.

Avempace, unity of inorganic and or-
ganic forces, 77.

Avicenna, Uniformitarianism in geology,
76.

Bacon, Francis, science and religion. 20;
failure to appreciate the Greeks, 90;
induction, 91 ; mutability of species,
91 ; variation, 92; experimental Evolu-
tion, 93; artificial selection, 92;
gradations between species, 93.

Baer, embryological evidence of the mu-
tability of species, 212.

Biogenesis, Harvey's dictum, 28; I-i-
marck, 178.

Bonnet, relation to Leibnitz; 'Evolu-
tion.' 118; continuity. 119; perfect-
ing tendency. 120; pre-existing germs,
120; scale of ascent, 121.

255

256

INDEX.

Branching nature of ascent, Lamarck,
172-176; St. Hilaire, 201-202.

Bruno, sources of his ideas, 78, 79 ; sup-
posed anticipations, 80; perfecting
tendency, 80 ; interpretation of
'Genesis,' 80; Uniformitarianism, 82;
origin of man, 82.

Buch, geographical distribution, 213 ;
direct action environment, 214; seg-
regation, 214.

Buffon, characteristics, 130-131 ; change
of views, 132; conception of teleol-
ogy, 132 ; mutability of species, 133 ;
development and degeneration, 133 ;
unity of type, 134; scale of ascent,
135; pangenesis, 135; direct influence
of environment, 136 ; segregation,
136 ; struggle for existence, 136 ; im-
perfect phyletic views, 139 ; anticipa-
tion of Darwinism, 141.

Causation, relation of natural and super-
natural, Aristotle, 50, 51; problems
of, left by the Greeks, 68 ; natural,
Augustine, 72; natural, philosophers
upon, 89 ; Descartes, 94 ; Spinoza, 97 ;
Kant, 100; E. Darwin, 148; Lamarck,
163 ; Owen, 219 ; ' finality,' Naudin,
224 ; Darwin, 237-238.

Chambers, ' The Vestiges,' 215 ; cosmic
Evolution, 216; descent of man, 216;
saltatory Evolution, 217; perfecting
tendency, 217 ; abiogenesis, 218.

Continuity of Germs (hereditary), Robi-
net, 122.

Creation, Potential, Gregory, 71 ; Augus-
tine, 71; Erigena, 74; Aquinas, 75;
Bruno, 80; Descartes, 95. Special,
Descartes upon, 94; Suarez, 83; Buf-
fon, 134; Lamarck, 159; succession of
creations, Cuvier, 196 ; Darwin, 232.

Cuvier, early and late views, 195 ; catastro-
phism, 196; special creations, 196;
discussion with St. Hilaire, 202-204.

Darwin, Charles, relation to the past, 229 ;
changes of opinion, 229; induction,
230, 234 ; hereditary and educational
influences, 231 ; evolution idea, 233 ;
development of his opinions, 235 ;
natural selection, 236; perfecting
principle, 237 ; ' Design,' 238 ; ' salta-
tory Evolution,' 238 ; survival of the
fittest, 239; Lamarck's factor, 240;
Buffon's factor, 240, 241 ; heredity,

242; final opinions, 243; relation to
Wallace, 243.

Darwin, Erasmus, principal writings, 139 ;
abiogenesis, 140 ; origin of man, 141 ;
accidental variation, favourable, 141 ;
struggle for existence, 142 ; indebted-
ness to the Greeks, 142 ; anticipa-
tion of Lamarck, 143; primordial
germ, 144; evidences of Evolution,
145 ; transmission of acquired charac-
ters, 145 ; sexual characters, 147 ; irri-
tability, 147, 148 ; evolution of man,
149; limitations of his theory, 150;
relations to Lamarck, 152-155.

Degeneration, Aristotle, 25; Sylvius and
Vesalius, 25; Kant, loi ; Buff"on, 133,
134; disuse, Owen, 219-220; caused
by disuse, Darwin, 240-242.

Democritus, anticipation of materialism.
41; attitude towards adaptation, 42;
the universe a mechanism, 42.

Descartes, on special creation and a
natural order of development, 95.

Design, intelligent, Anaxagoras, 42 ; Aris-
totle, 49, 53, 54; misconception of,
Buffon, 132; Darwin, 238.

Development, progressive, Aristotle, 26 ;
Buffon, 133 ; Owen, 220.

Diderdt, relation to Empedocles, psychic
attraction and repulsion, 115; sur-
vival of fittest combinations, 116;
conception of Evolution, 116.

Diogenes, spontaneous origin of life, 36.

Economy of growth, law of, Aristotle,
25, 46; Goethe, 25; St. Hilaire, 25;
Treviranus, 190.

Embryology, advance of, 27 ; evidence
of Evolution and unity of type,
Meckel, 212; Baer, 212; Serres, 212;
Owen, 220.

Empedocles, succession of life, 37 ; for-
tuitous origin, 38 ; survival of the
fittest, 39 ; struggle for existence, 39 ;
relation to modern Evolution, 41 ;
criticised by Aristotle, 55; attraction
and repulsion, 37.

Environment, Influences of, Maillet, 112;
direct, Buffon, 136, 137; Kant, loi ;
indirect, E. Darwin, 147; Lamarck,
172; direct, Lamarck. 177-178; Trevi-
ranus, 191 ; action upon early stages
of development, St. Hilaire, 199;
action upon fixation of type, St. Vin-
cent, 205; Buch, 214; Haldeman,2i4;

INDEX.

257

Spencer, 215; Chambers, 217; Nau-
din, 224; Darwin, 240.

Epicurus, lack of scientific spirit, 59;
mechanical philosophy, 60.

Evolution, Ceaseless changes in the
Universe, Heraclitus, 37; natural
philosophers, 88; Leibnitz, 88, 95;
Descartes, 94 ; Lamarck, 163 ; Cham-
bers, 216; historic terms, 15; and
natural causation, 21 ; Emboitement,
26 ; in terms of movement, Aristotle,
50 ; ' Saltatory," St. Hilaire, 200. Still
in process, Empedocles, 38; Aristotle,
48; Diderot, 116. Evidences of, in
transitions between species. Bacon, 93 ;
Leibnitz, 96; Kant, 102; E. Darwin,
145. [See also Vestigial Structures.]
Gradual development, Empedocles,
40 ; Aristotle, 48 ; Bruno, 80 ; Des-
cartes, Leibnitz, 96; Diderot, 116;
Goethe, 187. [See also Scale of
Ascent.]

Evolution, Experimental, Bacon, 92, 93.

Fixation of type, St. Vincent, 206 ; Nau-

din, 224.
Form and matter, relations of, Aristotle,

49, 53; Bruno, 80; Goethe, 186;

Treviranus, 194.
Fortuity vs. Design, Democritus, 42;

opinions of Aristotle, 53 ; Diderdt,

117; Darwin, 238.
Fossils, as evidence of past history of the

globe, Xenophanes, 36; Leibnitz,

96; Maillet, 112.

Geographical distribution, BuflFon. 136;
Buch, 214; Darwin, 240; Humboldt,
232; De CandoUe, 235.

Germs, pre-existent, doctrine of, Anax-
agoras,42; Maillet, 112; Bonnet, 120;
Dider6t, 1 19-120; Robinet, 122. '

Germs or cells, primordial, the original
simple forms of life, Aristotle, 56;
Buffon, 135; Kant, loi ; E. Darwin,
144; Lamarck, 178: primordial
spheres, Oken, 126; primordial types,
Treviranus, 194.

Goethe, mental characteristics, 181 ; in-
fluence of Buffon and the Greeks, 182 ;
philosophical anatomy, 183; com-
parative anatomy, 184; unity of type,
184; vestiges, 185; method, 185;
adaptation problem, 186 ; matter and

form, 186; theory of transformation,
187.

Greeks, the natural philosophy of, 29;
influence of their surroundings, 29;
spirit of, 30; phases of their natural
philosophy, 31, 32; their legacy to
later thought, 64-68 ; influence upon
the P'athers, 69-71 ; cosmic Evolution,
89 ; influence upon speculative
group. 108.

Gregory of Nyssa, potential creation, 71.

Heraclitus, contribution to the Evolution
idea, 37.

Herbert, production of new species by
intercrossing, 213.

Herder, influence of Kant, 103 ; pro-
gressive development, 103 ; unity of
type, 103.

Heredity ('pangenesis,' ' perigcncsis'),
theories of Aristotle, 46 ; Maupertuis,
114; Buffon, 135; Lamarck, 171;
Darwin, 242.

Homology in structure, Vicq d'Azyr. 24.

Inductive method, Aristotle, 16, 47 ;
Bruno, 17, 79; Bacon. 17, 91; and
deductive, Scheliing, 105; Goethe,
185; Treviranus, 189; induction and
deduction, Cuvier and St. Hilaire.
202-204 ; Darwin, 230-234.

Internal perfecting tendency. Aristotle,
50; Bruno, 80; Leibnitz. 20; Herder,
103; Bonnet, 120; Chambers. 217;
Owen, 219; opposed by Darvsin. 237.

Kant, indebtedness to Buffon, 98; tele-
ology, 99; Evolution, 99; natural
causation, 100; man, loi ; survival of
the fittest, loi; unity of type, 102;
scale of ascent, 102.

Lamarck, relations to E. Dar\vin, 152-
155 ; life and characteristics, 156-158 ;
change of views, 159-161 ; conception
of nature, 163; of Evolution. 163;
uniformity. 165; his factors. 165-167;
illustrations. 168-171 ; irritability. 169;
heredity, 171; species. 170-172; phy-
logeny, 172-176; action of environ-
ment,' 177. 178: abiogcncsis. 178:
primordial cells, 178; defects and
failure of his system. 179-181.

Lange. opinions upon Democritus* and
Empedocles' doctrines andUesign. 40.

258

INDEX.

Leibnitz, continuity and perfectibility, 20 ;

scale of beings, 95; mutability of

species, 96; man and the primates,
96.

Lessing, law of development, 103.

Linnaeus, characteristics, 128; fixity of
species, 129; new hybrids, 130; com-
parison with Buffon, 130; his method
of thought, 202.

Lucretius, relations to Empedocles and
Epicurus, 60-62 ; survival of the fit-
test, 62 ; abiogenesis, 63,

Lyell, exposition of Lamarckism, 233;
his views, 227.

Man, Cr/^/«(7/;Anaximander, 34; Oken,
127. Slow development of, Anaximan-
der, 34; in the faculties and arts,
Lucretius, 64; in mental evolution.
Bruno, 80; relation to apes, Leibnitz,
96; E. Darwin, 147, Relation to
other primates, tool-bearing hands,
Bruno, 82 ; Leibnitz, 96 ; Kant, loi ;
unity of type. Herder, 104 ; Robinet,
121 ; Buffon, 134; Buffon and Helve-
tius, 140-141 ; tool-bearing hands, E.
Darwin, 141 ; Chambers, 216. Sum-
mit of Evolution, Aristotle, 49, 51, 52 ;
Robinet, 123 ; E. Darwin, 141.
Maillet, sudden transformations, no;
suddenly acquired characters, no;
uniformity, 112; marine and terres-
trial forms, 112.

Matthew, principle of natural selection,
223.

Matter, see Form.

Maupertuis, psychic properties of matter,
113; heredity, 114; fortuitous varia-
tion, 115.

Meckel, embryological evidence of Evo-
lution, 212.

Metamorphosis, sudden transformation,
Duret, 108; Bonnami, 109; Kircher,
109; Maillet, no.

Mutability of species, natural philoso-
phers upon, 88 ; Bacon, 91 ; Leibnitz,
96; Buffon, 132; Lamarck, 163; St.
Vincent, 205 ; embryological evi-
dence, Baer, 212.

Oken, relation to the Greeks, 124; Ur-
Schleim, 125; abiogenesis, 126; cel-
lular theory, 126 ; origin of man, 127.

Origin of species (see Mutability and
Evolution) by intercrossing, Bruno,
84; Linnaeus, 130; Herbert, 213.

Owen, archetypal idea, 218; continuous
creation, 219; degeneration, 219 ; evi-
dences of Evolution, 220.

Parmenides, 36.

Pascal, influence of the Greeks, 17;
upon Evolution, 97.

Pliny, natural history of, 58.

Psychic properties of matter, attraction
and repulsion, Empedocles, 37 ; Mau-
pertuis, 113; Dider6t, 115.

Robinet, scale, 121 ; man and apes, 121 ;
uniformity, 122 ;pre-existent germs, 32.

Naudin, unity of type, 223 ; phylogeny,
224; environment, 224; finality, 224;
fixation of type, 524 ; artificial selec-
tion, 225.

Saltatory Evolution, St. Hilaire, 200-201 ;
Chambers, 217; Darwin, 238; Hux-
ley, 238.
Scale of Ascent, from the polyps to rnan,
Aristotle, 48 ; Bruno, 81 ; continuity,
Leibnitz, 96; Kant, 102; Lessing,
103; Herder, 103; continuity. Bon-
net, 121; Robinet, 102; Buffon, 135 ;
Lamarck, 172.
Schelling, deductive character of his
philosophy, 105; philosophy of
nature, 104; influence upon St.
Hilaire. 197.
Segregation, similar in its results to arti-
ficial selection, Buffon, 136; Buch,
214; Darwin, 241.
Selection, Artificial, relation to Evolution,
Bacon, 92; Buffon, 136; segregation,
Buffon, 112; survival of the fittest,
Wells, 222; Naudin, 225; Darwin,
235; Natural Selection, see Survival
of the Fittest.
Serres, embryological evidence of Evolu-
tion, 212, 213.
Spencer, early publications, 215.
St. Vincent, life, 204 ; abiogenesis, 205 ;
fixity of type, 205 ; hereditary sta-
bility, 206.
St. Hilaire, Geoffroy, characteristics, 197 ;
sources of his opinions and method,
197 ; his special theories, 198 ; envi-
ronment, 199; anticipation of Dar-
winism, 199; 'saltatory Evolution,'
200; phylogeny and limited view of

INDEX.

259

Evolution, 201, 202; discussion with
Cuvier, 202-204 "• unity of type, 203.

St. Hilaire, Isidore, theory of limited
variability, 207 ; stability of types, 207 ;
influence of environment, 208.

Struggle for existence, Anaximander, 35;
in feeding and propagation, Em-
pedocles, 39; Buffon, 136; Malthus,
136; E. Darwin, 142; Treviranus,
191 ; De Candolle, W. Herbert, Lyell,
239; Darwin, 239, 244; Wallace, 244.

Suarez, special creation, 83; post-crea-
tion species, 84; opposes Augustine,
84; literalism, 85.

Survival of the Fittest, forms or varieties
of life, Empedocles, 39 ; supported
by Epicurus, 60; by Lucretius, 61;
Hume, 97 ; Buffon, 136 ; Kant, loi ;
St. Hilaire, 199; Wells, 222; Mat-
thew, 223 ; Naudin, 225 ; Darw in,
236 ; Wallace, 245. Single advan-
tageous variations and organs stated
and opposed by Aristotle, 55 ; Dide-
r6t, by fortuitous combinations of
particles, 116; by combinations of
organs, 117; survival of opposable
thumb, Buffon, 141; E. Darwin, 141;
St. Hilaire, 199 ; Darwin, 239, 244.

Teleology of Aristotle, 51 ; opposed by

Democritus, 42; by Epicurus, 60;

by Lucretius, 61 ; Kant, 99 ; Buffon,

132; Darwin, 238.
Thales, suggestion of marine origin of

life, 33.
Treviranus, his ' biology,' 188 ; his method,

189; compensation of growth, 190;

environment, 191 ; struggle for exist-

ence, 191; factors of Evolution, 192;
abiogenesis, 193 ; primordial polyps,
194; matter and form, 194-195.
Type, unity of, Aristotle, 45 ; Bruno, 80;
Leibnitz, 96; Newton, 97; Kant. 102;
Herder, 103; Buffon, 134 ; E. Darwin,
145; Goethe, 184; St. Hilaire, 198,
203; Archetype, Owen, 219; Naudin,
223.

Uniformitarianism, similarity of past
and present changes. Avicenna, 76;
Bruno, 82; Maillet, 112; Buffon, 137;
Lamarck, 165 ; Darwin, 232.

Variation and Evolution, Bacon, 88.92;
Leibnitz, 99 ; fortuitous, from sexual
union, Maupertuis, 115; St. Hilaire,
199; Brown, 23s; Darwin, 244: Wal-
lace, 2^4.

Variation, fortuitous, by fortuitous com-
binations, Empedocles, 38 ; Dider6t,
117; St. Hilaire, 199; Wells, 222;
Darwin's opinion, 237.

Variability, theory of limited. Is. St.
Hilaire, 206-208.

Vestigial structures, meaning of, Aris-
totle, 45; Buffon, 132; Goethe, 185.

Wallace, on the evidence of Evolution,
226; statement of his theory, 244;
distinction of, 245.

Wells, theory of natural selection, 222.

Xenophanes, 36.

Zeller, division of the Greek periods, 32 ;
upon origin of idea of Design, 40, 42.

Columbia University Biological Series.

EDITED BY
HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN,

Ba Costa Professor of Zoology in Columbia Uniteraity,

AND

EDMUND B. WILSON,

Prof essor of Zoology in Columbia UnicersUy.

This series is founded upon a course of popular University
lectures given during the winter of 1892-;), in connection witli
the opening of the new department of Biology in Cohimljiu
College. The lectures are in a measure consecutive in ciiarac-
ter, illustrating phases in the discovery and application of the
theory of Evolution. Thus the first course outlined the de-
velopment of the Descent theory; the second, the a])plicati()n
of this theory to the problem of the ancestry of the Vertebrates,
largely based upon embryological data; the third, the applica-
tion of the Descent theory to the interpretation of the struftnre
and phylogeny of the Fishes or lowest V^ertebrates, chiefly based
upon comparative anatomy ; the fourth, upon the problems of
individual development and Inheritance, chiefly based upon the
structure and functions of the cell.

Since their orio-inal delivery the lectures have been carefullv
rewritten and illustrated so as to adapt them to the use of Col-
lege and University students and of general readers. The vol-
umes as at present arranged for include:

I. From the Greeks to Darwin. By Henry Faiufield

OSBORN.

II. Aiiiphioxus and the Ancestry of tlie Vertebrates.
By Arthur Willet.
III. Fishes, Living and Fossil. By Bashk.ko Dkan.
IV. The Cell in Development and Inheritance. ly

Edmuxd B. Wilson.
Y. The Foundations of Zoology. By William Kmih
Brooks, ^^___

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

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I. FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EVOLUTION IDEA.

BY

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D., Princeton,

Da Costa Professor of Zoology in Columbia University.
8vo. Cloth. $2.00, net.

This opening volume, " From the Greeks to Darwin," is an
outline of the development from the earliest times of the idea of
the origin of life by evolution. It brings together in a continu-
ous treatment the progress of this idea from the Greek philoso-
pher Thales (640 B.C.) to Darwin and Wallace. It is based
partly upon critical studies of the original authorities, partly
ujion the studies of Zeller, Perrier, Quatrefages, Martin, aud
other writers less known to English readers.

This history differs from the outlines which have been pre-
viously published, in attempting to establish a complete conti-
nuity of thought in the growth of the various elements in the
Evolution idea, and especially in the more critical and exact
study of the pre-Darwinian writers, such as Buffon, Goethe,
Erasmus Darwin, Treviranus, Lamarck, and St. Hilaire, about
whose actual share in the establishment of the Evolution theory
vague ideas are still current.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
I. The Axttcipatiox axd Interpret atio:n" of I^ature.
II. Among the Greeks.

III. The Theologians and Natural Philosophers.

IV. The Evolutionists of the Eighteenth Century.
y. From Lamarck to St. Hilaire.

VI. The First Half-century and Darwin.

In the opening chapter the elements and environment of the
Evolution idea are discussed, and in the second chapter the re-
markable parallelism between the growth of this idea in Greece
and in modern times is pointed out. In the succeeding chap-
ters the various periods of European thought on the subject are
covered, concluding with the first half of the present century,
especially with the development of the Evolution idea in the
mind of Darwin.

IV. THE CELL IN DEVELOPMENT AND

INHERITANCE.

BY

EDMUND B. WILSON, Ph.D., J.H.U.,

Professor of Invertebrate Zuuloyy, Culunibia Culleye.

This volume contains a presentation in a simple form of tlie
present state of our knowledge regarding cell-orgunizatiou and
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treated primarily as the basis or substratum of inheritance.
Attention is therefore directed at the outset especially to the
germ-cells — to their structure and maturation, their union in
fertilization, to the phenomena of cell-division, and to the earlier
stages of embryological development as illustrating the ])roblems
of cell-dynamics.

These chapters are used as an introduction to a more general
account of the cell, considered both as an indei)endent organi.<m
and as a unit of more complex structure and action. The organ-
ization of the cell is fully described, the functions of its various
parts critically discussed, and a review given of modern theories
of protoplasmic structure and action. The latter part of the
work is devoted mainly to recent discoveries in experimental
embryology in their bearing on the current tlieories of Wei.^-
mann, Hertwig, and others, regarding the essential nature of
development, differentiation, and regeneration. The V(jlume
will be fully illustrated.

Just Puhlished,

BIOLOGICAL LECTURES AND ADDRESSES

DELIVERED BY THE LATE

ARTHUR MILNES MARSHALL, M.A., M.D., D.Sc, F.R.S.,

Professor vf Zooloqy in Oirens Collfc/e ; Late Fellow of
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EDITED BY

C. F. MARSHALL, M.D., B.Sc, F.R.C.S.

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II. AMPHIOXUS AND THE ANCESTRY
OF THE VERTEBRATES.

BY

ARTHUR WILLEY, B.Sc. Lond.,

Tutor in Biology, Columbia Unirernity ; Tiitlfnur Student of the
University of Cambridge.

8vo. Cloth. $2.50, net.

The purpose of this vohime is to consider the proldom of tlio
ancestry of the Vertebrates from the stan(l})oint of the anat-
omy and development of Amphioxns and other members of the
group Protochordata. The work opens with an Introduction,
in which is given a brief historical sketch of the speculations
of the celebrated anatomists and embryologists, from Kticnne
Geoffroy St. Hilaire down to our own day, upon tliis ])n)ljK'm.
The remainder of the first and the whole of tlie second cliajticr
is devoted to a detailed account of tlie anatomy of Am})hi(>xus
as compared with that of higher Vertebrates. The tliird chajiUT
deals with the embryonic and larval development of Am]»hi<»\iis,
while the fourth deals more brietiv with the anatom v, embrvoloirv,
and relationships of the Ascidians; then the other allied forms,
Balanoglossus, Cephalodiscus, are described.

The work concludes with a series of discussions toncli-
ing the problem proposed in the Introduction, in which it is
attempted to define certain general principles of Evolution by
which the descent of the Vertebrates from Invertebrate ancestors
may be supposed to have taken place.

The work contains an extensive bibliography, full notes, and
135 illustrations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Introduction".

Chapter I. Anatomy of Amphioxus.
II. Ditto.

III. Development of Ampiiioxus.

IV. The Ascidians.

V. The Protochordata in their Relation to
THE Problem of Vertehrate Desc-ent.

in. FISHES, LIVING AND FOSSIL.

AN INTRODUCTOBY STUDY.

BY

BASHFORD DEAN, Ph.D., Columbia,

Insti'uctor iiv Biology, Columbia University.
8vo. Cloth. $2.50, net.

This work has been prepared to meet the needs of the gen-
eral student for a concise knowledge of the Fishes. It contains
a review of the four larger groups of the strictly fishlike forms.
Sharks, Chimaeroids, Teleostomes, and the Dipnoans, and adds
to this a chapter on the Lampreys. It presents in figures the
prominent members, living and fossil, of each group; illustrates
characteristic structures; adds notes upon the important phases
of development, and formulates the views of investigators as to
relationships and descent.

The recent contributions to the knowledge of extinct Fishes
are taken into special account in the treatment of the entire
subject, and restorations have been attempted, as of Dinichthys,
Ctenodus, and Cladoselache.

The writer has also indicated diagrammatically, as far as
generally accepted, the genetic relationships of fossil and living
forms.

The aim of the book has been mainly to furnish the student
with a w^ell-marked ground-plan of Ichthyology, to enable him to
better understand special works, such as those of Smith Wood-
ward and Giinther. The work is fully illustrated, mainly from
the writers original pen-drawings.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. Fishes. Their Essential Characters. Sharks, Chimaeroids, Teleo-
stomes, aud Luug-tishes. Their Appearance in Time and their
Distribution,

II. The Lampreys. Their Position with Reference to Fishes. Bdel-
lostoma, Myxiue, Petromyzon, Palaeospoudylus.

IIL The Shark Group. Anatomical Characters. Its Extinct Members,
Acaiithodiau, Cladoselachid, Xenacanthid, Cestracionts.

IV. Chimaeroids. Structures of Callorhyuchus and Chimaera. Squalo-
raja and Myriacanthus. Life-habits and Probable Relationships.

V. Teleostomes, The Forms of Recent *' Ganoids." Habits and Dis-
tribution. The Relations of Prominent Extinct Forms. Crosso-
pterygians. Typical " Bony Fishes. "

VI. The Evolution of the Groups of Fishes. Aquatic Metamerism.
Numerical Lines. Evolution of Gill-cleft Characters, Paired and
Unpaired Fins, Aquatic Sense-organs.

VIl! The Development op Fishes, Prominent Features in Embr3^onic
and Larval Development of Members of each Group. Summaries.

"1

JAN

73

N MANCHESTER.
INDIANA

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