OLD AND NEW METHODS IN ZOOLOGY. 23 



revolted when Darwin's book appeared. Then enthusiasm, with 

 all its exaggerations, succeeded the first astonishment ; and in a 

 little while, a reaction taking place, innumerable investigations 

 were begun with an activity and a curiosity which the previously 

 received ideas were no longer capable of determining. In the first 

 spasm of enthusiasm the great naturalist's theory was called Dar- 

 winism ; at a later period, dealing less in details and generalizing 

 more, it was called Transformism. 



It must be recognized that whatever measure of confidence we 

 put in transformism, whether we accept it in its whole extent 

 and with all its consequences, exaggerate it, modify it, accept it 

 with amendment, or reject it, no one can doubt that it has pro- 

 voked a truly extraordinary scientific movement. Both partisans 

 and detractors, in seeking for proofs in support of their opinion, 

 whether demanding its secrets from embryogeny, or digging into 

 the strata of the earth in order to interpret the remains of organ- 

 ized beings which they inclose ; all, whatever may have been their 

 method, ideas, opinions, or even hostility, have contributed greatly 

 to the progress of zoology. Thus we are far from the period of 

 Linnaeus, when the external character was everything; and from 

 the period of Cuvier, when the anatomical idea and the study of 

 the exterior were the only guides of the classifier. Now we inves- 

 tigate the connections of beings by going back from the existing 

 to the primitive forms, or vice versa. We try to explain the 

 varied forms under our eyes by the aid of the laws so happily 

 formulated by Darwin. Evolution is encountered everywhere. 

 Whether one be a transformist or not, he must bow and acknowl- 

 edge the force of the tremendous bound which the impulse given 

 by Darwin has caused. 



There are, however, as Claparede has said, " terrible children " 

 of transformism who are more anxious to make a noise around 

 their name than to discover the truth. We must prudently dis- 

 tinguish from them the conscientious students who seek long, 

 scrupulously, and painfully for precise facts in order to deduce 

 from them consequences that will support their theories. These 

 surely advance science, while the others often compromise it. The 

 one thing to oppose to exaggeration, assumption, and enthusiasm 

 is experiment. It is as mandatory to-day as in the preceding 

 period were the reforms which I have mentioned. 



While Darwin had an immense and legitimate success, the 

 ideas of Lamarck, who more than half a century before him 

 taught and published the same views on the mutability of species, 

 were long forgotten. Our illustrious compatriot has been treated 

 rather unjustly and severely. There are whole pages in the works 

 of Lamarck containing the theory of transformation completely 

 developed, to which Darwin has added nothing except to confirm 



