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x OBITUARY 277 
the region in which the ark stranded after the 
subsidence of the deluge. It is true that the 
geologists had drawn attention to a good many 
tolerably serious difficulties in the way of the 
diluvial part of this hypothesis, no less than to the 
supposition that the work of creation had occupied 
only a brief space of time. But even those, such 
as Lyell, who most strenuously argued in favour 
of the sufficiency of natural causes for the pro- 
duction of the phenomena of the inorganic world, 
held stoutly by the hypothesis of creation in the 
case of those of the world of life. 
For persons who were unable to feel satisfied 
with the fashionable doctrine, there remained only 
two alternatives—the hypothesis of spontaneous 
generation, and that of descent with modification. 
The former was simply the creative hypothesis 
with the creator left out; the latter had already 
been propounded by De Maillet and Erasmus 
Darwin, among others; and, later, systematically 
expounded by Lamarck. But in the eyes of the 
naturalist of the “ Beagle” (and, probably, in those 
of most sober thinkers), the advocates of transmu- 
tation had done the doctrine they expounded more 
harm than good. 
Darwin’s opinion of the scientific value of the 
“Zoonomia” has already been mentioned, His 
verdict on Lamarck is given in the following pas- 
sage of a letter to Lyell (March, 1863) :— 
“Tastly, you refer repeatedly to my view as a 
