Il6 THE HISTORY OF CHEATION. 



developed ; in front, the arms and hands, for the purpose of 

 seizing objects. The upright walk v.^as then followed by a 

 freer view over the suiTounding objects, and led consequently 

 to an important progress in mental development. Human 

 apes thereby soon gained a great advantage over the other 

 apes, and further, over surrounding organisms in general. 

 In order to maintain the supremacy over them, they 

 formed themselves into companies, and there arose, as in the 

 case of all animals living in company, the desire of com- 

 municating to one another their desires and thoughts. Thus 

 arose the necessity of language, which, consisting at first of 

 rough and disjointed sounds, soon became more connected, 

 developed, and articulate. The development of articulate 

 speech now in turn became the strongest lever for a further 

 progressive development of the organism, and above all, of 

 the brain, and so ape-like men became gradually and slowly 

 transformed into real men. In this way the actual descent of 

 the lowest and rudest primitive men from the most highly 

 developed apes was distinctly maintained by Lamarck, and 

 supported by a series of the most important proofs. 



The honour of being the chief French nature-philosopher is 

 not usually assigned to Lamarck, but to Etienne Geofiroy St. 

 Hilaire (the elder), born in 1771, the same in whom Goethe 

 was especially interested, and with whom we have already 

 become acquainted as Cuvier's most prominent opponent. 

 He developed his ideas about the transformation of organic 

 species as far back as the end of the last century, but 

 published them only in the year 1828, and then in the fol- 

 lowing years, especially in 1880, defended them bravely 

 against Cuvier. Geoffroy St. Hilaire in all essentials 

 adopted Lamarck's Theory of Descent, yet he believed that 



