Tr THE DARWINIAN HYPOTHESIS 11 
duced by a distinct creative act. The second 
| _ position is obviously incapable of proof or disproof, 
the direct operations of the Creator not being 
subjects of science; and it must therefore be 
regarded as a eaelincy from the first, the truth 
or falsehood of which is a matter of evidence. 
- Most persons imagine that the arguments in 
favour of it are Leon whalening but to some few 
_ minds, and these, it must as ccnticiigl intellects 
of no small power and grasp of knowledge, they 
have not brought conviction. Among these 
minds, that of the famous naturalist Lamarck, 
who possessed a greater acquaintance with the 
lower forms of life than any man of his day, 
_ Cuvier not excepted, and was a good botanist to 
boot, occupies a prominent place. 
Two facts appear to have strongly affected the 
course of thought of this remarkable man—the 
one, that finer or stronger links of affinity connect 
all living beings with one another, and that thus 
the highest creature grades by multitudinous 
steps into the lowest; the other, that an_organ_ 
at developed in in_ particular _<¢ directions by. 
exerting itself in particular ways, and that modi- 
Sitons once induced may be transmitted and 
ecome hereditary. Putting these facts together, 
uaa arck, endeavoured to account for the first by 
the operation of the second. Place an animal in 
new circumstances, says he, and its needs will be 
altered ; the new needs will create new desires, and 
