328 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



is the foundation of the Lamarckian system, but he 

 moreover and particularly declines to explain those 

 degenerations which he admits as possible, by changes 

 of action and habit on the part of the creature vary- 

 ing Lamarck's favourite hypothesis, which he laboured 

 to demonstrate without even succeeding in making it 

 appear probable." * 



Isidore Geoffroy then declares that his father, 

 " though chronologically a follower of Lamarck, should 

 be ranked philosophically as having continued the 

 work of Buffou, to whom all his differences of opinion 

 with Lamarck serve to bring him nearer." t If he had 

 understood BufFon he would not have said so. 



His conclusions are thus summed up : " Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire maintains that species are variable if the 

 environment varies in character ; differences, then, more 

 or less considerable according to the power of the modi- 

 fying causes may have been produced in the course of 

 time, and the living forms of to-day may be the de- 

 scendants of more ancient forms." J 



It is not easy to see that much weight should be 

 attached to Geoffroy St. Hilaire's opinion. He seems 

 to have been a person of hesitating temperament, under 

 an impression that there was an opening just then 

 through which a judicious trimmer might pass himself 

 in among men of greater power. If his son has de- 

 scribed his teaching correctly, it amounts practically to 

 a lond fide endorsement of what Buffon can only be 

 considered to have pretended to believe. The same 

 objection that must be fatal to the view pretended by 

 * < Hist. Nat. Gen.,' torn. ii. p. 415. f Ibid. J Ibid. p. 421. 



