584 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



be adequate to account for the whole nature of man, 

 Mr. Mivart Jays less stress upon the miraculously- 

 endowed origin of the internal tendencies, though he 

 considers that some supernatural interposition must 

 have been needed in order to produce man's moral 

 faculties. , 



Lamarck ^, Professor Grant ^^ and others, however, 

 whilst holding that living matter was and is constantly 

 being evolved by the operation of those laws which 

 reign supreme in the inorganic world, also believe 

 that organization increases in complexity, in obedience 

 to naturally implanted internal tendencies — these in- 

 ternal tendencies being regarded as fuither conce- 

 quences dependent upon, and harmonious with, those 

 all-pervading natural ^ laws' which continually lead to 

 the formation of the living matter. Concerning the 

 cause of the ^ laws' themselves, they, in the absence 

 of all evidence, do not feel called upon to express 

 an opinion ^. 



^ In the Intrcduction to his ' Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertebres,' 



1815. 



"^ See p. 165, and also his ' Outline of an Elementary Course of Recent 

 Zoology,' 1861, pp. 1-9 and 91. 



^ It is to be regretted that on other subjects Lamarck did not exhibit 

 the same amount of caution. It is now quite commonly known that 

 he endeavoured to support his ' progressionist ' views by advocating the 

 efficacy of modifying causes, which were most crudely conceived and, 

 in fact, non-existent. Both he and Dr. Erasmus Darwin supplement the 

 action of their respective 'internal tendencies' by the supposed action of 

 mysteriously generated desires, appetites, and needs — and they imagined, 

 moreover, that by the action of these postulated internal affections. 



