LAMARCK 



Huxley also warned Darwin that he should ac- 

 knowledge his debt to Lamarck, but he, too, is an- 

 swered in the same strain. It is impossible to believe 

 that Darwin could read the Philosophie Zoologique 

 deliberately twice, as he says he did, and still find in 

 the work a lack of facts and the opinion that Lamarck 

 held that variations were produced by mere whim and 

 desire. It is well known that Darwin changed from 

 his early and passionate advocacy of natural selection 

 as the sole and sufficient cause of evolution to the 

 milder view that it was an important factor. That he 

 regretted his change of opinion is shown in a letter to 

 Hooker: "I hardly know why I am a little sorry, but 

 my present work is leading me to believe rather more 

 in the direct action of physical conditions. I presume 

 I regret it, because it lessens the glory of natural selec- 

 tion, and is so confoundedly doubtful."^* Again in 

 1872, he wrote to Moritz Wagner: "When I wrote 

 the Origin^ and for some years afterwards, I could 

 find little good evidence of the direct action of the en- 

 vironment, now there is a large body of evidence, and 

 your case of the Saturnia is one of the most remark- 

 able of which I have heard. "^^ But, in spite of this 

 acknowledgement of fact, he never gave any credit 

 to Lamarck or relaxed his contemptuous attitude. We 

 are forced, unwillingly, to the belief that either Dar- 

 win could not understand Lamarck or deliberately 



i4/z,ii., vol. II, p. 182. 



-^^Ibid., vol. II, p. 338. 



C 183 3 



