a2, LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
grounds. And though he is evidently alarmed at the 
pithecoid origin of man involved in Lamarck’s doc- 
trine, he observes: ‘“ But, after all, what changes 
species may really undergo! How impossible will it 
be to distinguish and lay down a line beyond which 
some of the so-called extinct species have never 
passed into recent ones?” 
He also quotes a remarkable passage in the post- 
script to a letter written to Sir John Herschel in 
1836: “In regard to the origination of new species, 
Iam very glad to find that you think it probable it 
may be carried on through the intervention of inter- 
mediate causes.” 
How nearly Lyell was made a convert to evolution 
by reading Lamarck’s works may be seen by the fol- 
lowing extracts from his letters, quoted by Huxley: 
fT think’ the old ‘creation’ 4s almost as) miuchjre- 
quired as ever, but of course it takes a new form if 
Lamarck’s views, improved by yours, are adopted.” 
(To Darwin, March 11, 1863, p. 363.) 
“As to Lamarck, I find that Grove, who has been 
reading him, is wonderfully struck with his book. I 
remember that it was the conclusion he (Lamarck) 
came to about man, that fortified me thirty years ago 
against the great impression which his argument at 
first made on my mind—all the greater because Con- 
stant Prevost, a pupil of Cuvier forty years ago, told 
me his conviction ‘that Cuvier thought species not 
real, but that science could not advance without as- 
suming that they were so.’” 
“When I came to the conclusion that after all La- 
marck was going to be shown to be right, that we 
must ‘go the whole orang,’ I re-read his book, and 
