HISTORICAL SKETCH OF EVOLUTION. 6l 



are other great works upon descent with modification 

 besides Mr. Darwin's. Not one person in ten thousand 

 has any distinct idea of what Buffon, Dr. Darwin, and 

 Lamarck propounded. Their names have been dis- 

 credited by the very authors who have been most in- 

 debted to them ; there is hardly a writer on evolution 

 who does not think it incumbent upon him to warn 

 Lamarck off the ground which he at any rate made his 

 own, and to cast a stone at what he will call the 

 " shallow speculations " or " crude theories " or the 

 " well-known doctrine " of the foremost exponent of 

 Buffon and Dr. Darwin. Buffon is a great name, Dr. 

 Darwin is no longer even this, and Lamarck has been 

 so systematically laughed at that it amounts to little 

 less than philosophical suicide for anyone to stand up 

 in his behalf. Not one of our scientific elders or chief 

 priests but would caution a student rather to avoid the 

 three great men whom I have named than to consult 

 them. It is a perilous task therefore to try and take 

 evolution from the pedestal on which it now appears to 

 stand so securely, and to put it back upon the one raised 

 for it by its propounders ; yet this is what I believe will 

 have to be done sooner or later unless the now general 

 acceptance of evolution is to be shaken more rudely 

 than some of its upholders may anticipate. I propose 

 therefore to give a short biographical sketch of the 

 three writers whose works form new departures in the 

 history of evolution, with a somewhat full resume of 

 the positions they took in regard to it. I will also 

 touch briefly upon some other writers who have handled 

 the same subject. The reader will thus be enabled to 



