WHAT EVOLUTION IS 15 



His views were ably seconded by a 

 number of the most distinguished 

 savants of his time, among whom 

 may be numbered the great Goethe. 

 Of Lamarck's confreres Geoffroy 

 Saint-Hilaire took up the subject in 

 pubHc discussion with Cuvier, per- 

 haps the greatest naturaHst of his 

 day. Cuvier, whose opinions were 

 anti-evolutionary, resisted with all his 

 strength and authority the rising tide 

 of new opinion and succeeded in 

 checking its flow, for it w^as generally 

 concluded at the end of the contest 

 that descent with modification must 

 be permanently abandoned. 



For some decades the storm sub- 

 sided, for the appearance of the little 

 volume entitled '' Vestiges of the Nat- 

 ural History of Creation," published 

 by Robert Chambers in 1844, w^as 

 only a ripple on the surface. Then 

 in 1859, with the publication of Dar- 



