248 LIFE: ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN 



progressive and imperceptible transformation of one species into 

 another, the notion was rejected. Speaking of Cuvier, Prof. R. C. 

 Punnett said: "Had it not been for him and his influence it is pos- 

 sible that Lamarck's views would have attracted more support, 

 and that contemporary copies of 'Philosophic Zoologique' would 

 not be among the rarefies of zoological literature." 



Unfortunately, Lamarck coupled his valid concept that animals 

 become adapted to modes of life different from their ancestors, 

 with what seemed a naive theory of causation. Without attempt- 

 ing to explain the mechanism whereby the employment of the 

 head in butting could lead to outgrowths of bone and epidermal 

 horn in stags and bulls, he attributed the formation of these pro- 

 jections to "an interior sentiment in their fits of anger, which 

 directs the fluid more strongly toward that part of their head." 3 



It was this vulnerable aspect of Lamarckism that led James 

 Russell Lowell to include in the "Remarks of Increase D. 

 O'Phace" 4 the following amusing lines: 



Some flossifiers think thet a fakkilty's granted 

 The minnit it's proved to he thoroughly wanted, 

 Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition, 

 An' thet everything nothin' except by position; 

 Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin' 

 Wen p'litikle conshunces came into wearin', — 

 That the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail, 

 Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail 



But the spirit of inquiry was in the air. The great Scotch- 

 German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) in his "An- 

 thropology," a book assembled in 1798 from lectures he had deliv- 

 ered during his long life, actually raised the question of man's 

 origin from animals. Pointing out that when early man was 

 surrounded by hostile wild animals, human infants, if they cried 

 as loudly as they now do, would have been found and devoured 

 by beasts, and that, therefore man must have been different then 

 from what he now is, Kant wrote: "How nature brought about 

 such a development, and by what causes it was aided, we know 

 not. This remark carries a long way. It suggests the thought 

 whether the present period of history, on occasion of some great 

 physical revolution, may not be followed by a third, when an 

 orang-outang or a chimpanzee would develop the organs for 

 walking, touching, speaking, with a central organ for the use of 



