THE NATUH-PHILOSOPHIE. 99 



travagant fancies may be found in Oken's philosophy of 

 nature, they must not prevent us paying our just admira- 

 tion to these grand ideas, which were so far in advance of 

 their age. This much is clearly evident from the statements 

 of Goethe and Oken which we have quoted, and from the 

 views of Lamarck and Geoffroy which have to be discussed 

 next, that during the first decade of our century no 

 doctrine approached so nearly to the natural Theory of 

 Descent, newly established by Darwin, as the much decried 

 " Natxir-philosophie." 



