vin] OF EVOLUTION 91 



Lamarck, Darwin expressed something like indig- 

 nation, and he wrote to their 'mutual friend* 

 Hooker, 'I have grumbled a bit in my answer to 

 him' (Lyell) 'at his always classing my book as a 

 modification of Lamarck's, which it is no more than 

 any author who did not believe in the immutability 

 of species 90 .' In this case, as is so frequently seen in 

 the writings of Darwin, it is evident that he attaches 

 infinitely less importance to the enunciation of the 

 idea of the evolution of species, than to the demon- 

 stration of a possible mode of origin of that evolution. 

 But that later in life Darwin came to take a more 

 indulgent view of the result of Lamarck's labours is 

 shown by a passage in his 'Historical Sketch* 

 prefixed to the Origin, in 1866. Lamarck, he says, 

 ' first did the eminent service of arousing attention 

 to the probability of all change in the organic world, 

 as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of 

 law and not of miraculous interposition 91 / 



In the opinion of Dr Schwalbe and others there 

 are indications in Darwin's later writings that he had 

 come into much closer relation with the views of 

 Lamarck, than was the case when he wrote the 

 Origin* 2 . 



It is interesting, however, to note that Erasmus 

 Darwin, the grandfather of Charles, published 

 independently and contemporaneously, views on the 

 nature and causes of evolution in striking agreement 



