260 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



this admirable sentence belongs to M. Deleuze, and not 

 to Dr. Darwin, who, however, has said what comes to 

 much the same thing,* as may be seen p. 227 of this 

 volume. But the authorship is immaterial ; whether 

 the passage was by Dr. Darwin or M. Deleuze, it was, 

 in all probability, known to Lamarck before his change 



of front. 



****** 



The note on Trapa Natans again \ suggests itself as 

 the source from which the passage in the ' Philosophic 

 Zoologique ' about the Ranunculus aquatilis is taken, t 

 while one of the most important passages in the work, 

 a summary, in fact, of the principal means of modi- 

 fication, seems to be taken, the first half of it from 

 Buffon, and the second from Dr. Darwin. I have called 

 attention to it on pp. 300, 301. 



We may then suppose that Lamarck failed to under- 

 stand Buffon, and conceived that he ought either to 

 have gone much farther, or not so far ; not being yet 

 prepared to go the whole length himself, he opposed 

 mutability till Dr. Darwin's additions to Buffon's 

 ostensible theory reached him, whereon he at once 

 adopted them, and having received nothing but a few 

 notes and hints, felt himself at liberty to work the 

 theory out independently and claim it. In so original 

 a work as the * Pliilosopliie Zoologique ' must always be 

 considered, this may be legitimate, but I find in it, as 

 Isidore Geoffrey seems also to have found, a little more 

 claim to complete independence than is acceptable to 

 one who is fresh from Buffon and Dr. Darwin. 



* ' Zoonomia,' vol. i. p. 507. t ' Les Amours des Plantes,' p. SCO. 



t Vol. i. p. 231, ed. M, Martins, 1873. 



