190 The Question of Organic Evolution. [April, 
proof of the pudding,” says a homely old adage, “‘ is in the 
eating,” and the proof of a theory, in the same manner, is in 
the working. ‘ 
Professor Schmidt points out that, although the honour of 
this great discovery belongs incontestably to Mr. Darwin, 
yet previous thinkers had been turning their inquiries in the 
same direction. Of these, the foremost place, perhaps, 
belongs to Lamarck, who, in the earlier part of the century, 
was loudly shrieked over by the Cuvierian school (then domi- 
nant). As early as 1804, in his ‘‘ Philosophie Zoologique,” 
he enunciated views which, had they been worked out in 
detail, and verified by carefully seleied evidence, would 
have almost anticipated Darwin. He held that our 
systematic definitions and gradations are purely artificial ; 
that nature has produced neither orders, families, genera, 
nor even immutable species. He regards, as the main 
cause of divergence from the original type, peculiarities 
acquired by the efforts of animals to accommodate themselves 
to a change in external circumstances, and the use or disuse 
of organs—causes which certainly cannot have been operative - 
in the vegetable world. Of our great comparative anatomist, 
Richard Owen—another herald of the avatar of Evolution— 
Professor Schmidt remarks: ‘‘ From the ichthyosaurus to 
man he sees the connection of descent; he denies that the 
influence of circumstances is decisive; he rejects a dozen 
times any kind of miracle; but the next moment he cleaves 
to miracle again, namely, to an innate tendency towards a 
certain future development, not imposed by circumstances 
and dependent on them, but conducive to a special purpose. 
Thus deal the trimmers, who through fear of consequences 
appease their scientific consciences with a word.” 
The opinion that ‘‘ Goethe actually proclaimed the 
Doctrine of Descent, or was, even in a poetical sense, its 
inspired prophet,’ though entertained by Haeckel is rejected 
by Schmidt. 
It may prove interesting briefly to examine some of the 
leading doctrines of the old school, and to note the transfor- 
mation they have undergone in the light of Evolutionism. 
By the old Natural History, species—in contradistin¢ction 
to variety or sub-species on the one hand, and to sub-genus 
on the other—was viewed as a something objective, and 
capable of a rigorous demarcation. For its recognition a two- 
fold criterion was put forward; a certain degree of mutual 
resemblance or morphological unity inall essential characters, 
and a kindred conne¢tion by the ties of a common descent 
from a hypothetical ancestral pair. On the faith, chiefly, 
