PALAEONTOLOGY AND GEOLOGY 



earth and breathe air, are safe from the destruction 

 of their entire species by man. Their powers of mul- 

 tiplication are so great and the methods by which 

 they can avoid his pursuit or his snares are so effective 

 that there is no likelihood that he can destroy the en- 

 tire species of any such animals."" 



This most important point of the slow and hesitat- 

 ing acceptance of the idea that the world has been 

 peopled by dead and gone species, historians of evo- 

 lution seem not to have appreciated.^^ Even Lamarck, 

 eager to find support for his ridiculed theory and 

 ready to grasp at the smallest facts to confirm his 

 ideas, could not believe that Nature or God could 

 create anything so imperfect and so little fitted to 

 withstand the rigours of life as to become extinct ex- 

 cept by the ruthless hands of dominating man. 



While evolution was thus knocking at the door, 

 there still remained the need for someone to change 

 speculative into rational theory. This last and most 



11 Lamarck, Philosophie Zoologique, vol. I, p. 91 [p. 44]. 



12 It is interesting to quote from Osborn's From the Greeks to Dar- 

 win, p. 176, to show how he could misunderstand Lamarck's attitude 

 and change the entire meaning of this most important passage : "It 

 is strange that Lamarck grasped the true idea of extinction of the 

 lower types, but not of the higher types. He could not credit the 

 extinction of such perfect forms as the Mastodon or the Palaeo- 

 therium by any of the forces of Nature, but believed that they 

 had probably been exterminated by man, or that these species might 

 still be found alive elsewhere. He thoroughly believed in the ex- 

 tinction of lower types, for example, of the Molluscs, and that the 

 lower types had given way to the higher, the ranks of the lower 

 types being constantly replenished by incessant creation of the 

 lowest forms." It is, perhaps, to be expected that he would mis- 

 interpret such distant authors as Aristotle or St. Augustine, but it is 

 hard to understand how he could turn Lamarck so completely 

 around if he had read that author with any care. 



C 139 3 



