88 THE COMING [CH. 



other questions of geological dynamics, however, it 

 must be confessed that Lamarck's views and specula- 

 tions were rather crude and unsatisfactory. 



In his Philosophic Zoologique, published in the 

 same year that Charles Darwin was born (1809), 

 Lamarck brought forward a great body of evidence 

 in favour of evolution, derived from his extensive 

 knowledge of botany, zoology and geology. He 

 showed how complete was the gradation between 

 many forms ranked as species, and how difficult it 

 was to say what forms should be classed as ' varieties' 

 and what as ' species.' 



But when he came to indicate a possible method 

 by which one species might be derived from another, 

 he was less happy in his suggestions. He recognised 

 the value of the evidence derived from the study of 

 the races which have arisen among domestic animals, 

 and from the crossing of different forms. But his 

 main argument was derived from the acknowledged 

 fact that use or disuse may cause the development 

 or the partial atrophy of organs the case of the 

 ' blacksmith's arm.' Unfortunately some of the 

 suggestions made by Lamarck, in this connexion 

 like that of the elongation of the giraffe's neck to 

 enable it to browse on high trees were of a kind 

 that made them very susceptible to ridicule. His 

 theory was of course dependent on the admission that 

 acquired characters were transmitted from parents to 



