The Transimitation Theory Before Darwin. 25 



GoDRON also distinguishes quite clearly between spe- 

 cific characters, and trivial fortuitous and purely ''indi- 

 vidual" deviations which soon disappear when the condi- 

 tions wdiich called them forth cease. The latter are united 

 together by a series of transitions; the former are not.-' 



When Darwin's work on the origin of species ap- 

 peared,^ the controversy over the ideas of species and 

 mutability raged most fiercely in France. But it only 

 turned on the question whether the larger or the smaller 

 species were separately created, or whether they had both 

 arisen from an original type. This original type, how- 

 ever, was never thought of as being larger than a genus. '^ 

 The transformation or transmutation theory of those 

 days was therefore an entirely different thing from the 

 modern theory of descent. Nevertheless Darw^in him- 

 self says in 1858 at the suggestion of Lyell and Hooker 

 he resolved to write a book on the ^'Transmutation" of 

 species, a book which was published in the following 

 year under the title of the Origin of Species.^ 



It is curious that the terms Mutation, Mutability, Im- 

 mutability and so forth should have been so completely 

 driven out of use by the theory of Selection. Darwin 

 directed his whole energy wnth full knowledge against 

 the dogma of the immutability of species. His ''Origin 

 of Species" begins with the statement that until recently 

 the great majority of investigators had believed "that 

 species were immutable productions."'^ "I had become, 

 in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were 

 mutable productions,"^ says he in his Autobiography; 



one species into another. See pp. 7, g, ii, 13, 34, etc. Also Godron, 

 De I Espcce, e. g., II, p. 422. 



^Godron, De l' Espcce, I, p. 175. ^ Nov. 24, 1859. 



^ See Wallace, Darzvinism, pp. 3-6. * Life and Letters, T. p. 85. 



^Origin of Species, 6th ed., 1898. Historical Sketch, p. xiii. 



^ Life and Letters, I, p. 93. 



