ORIGIN OF SPECIES 199 



Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was perhaps the first to 

 teach descent, Empedocles (ca. 490-430 B.C.) earher 

 having taught succession from lower to higher forms 

 of life. 



As the real founder of the modern theory of the 

 evolution of species one must name Jean Baptiste 

 Pierre Lamarck (1744-1829); while Alfred Russell 

 Wallace is known as the "co-discoverer" with Darwin 

 of the theory. Weismann holds that "the credit for 

 thus establishing the theory of evolution is shared 

 with Charles Darwin only by his contemporary, 

 Alfred Russell Wallace." Yet Charles Darwin, Her- 

 bert Spencer, and Ernst Haeckel form the great 

 picturesque trio of the theory of descent — that 

 dominating theory of the nineteenth century. 



The late William Bateson pointed out that "the 

 first full conception of the significance of variation 

 we owe to Darwin." Evolutionary views held before 

 the time of Darwin are presented by Henry Fairfield 

 Osborn in his volume. From the Greeks to Darwin. 

 A study of the evolutionary ideas of the Greeks is 

 also found in an address by E. Zeller, delivered (1878) 

 before the Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin), 

 *'Uber die griechischen V or ganger Darwins'"^ 



The general theory of descent always has involved 

 the question of man's descent; since the problem of 



^ Abhandlungen der koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1878. 



