EVOLUTION, VARIATION AND HEREDITY 445 



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less the fossil species resembled modern ones. This fact he was 

 unable to interpret correctly, owing to his belief in the immutability 

 of species, and he held the disappearance of the fossil forms to be the 

 result of sudden cataclysms, such as earthquakes or floods, which 

 annihilated successive faunae or sets of animals living on the earth. 



Another French naturalist, Buff on (1708-1788), opposed this view 

 of sudden geological changes, and maintained that these fossil remains 

 were the result of topographical changes in the configuration ot 

 land aijd water and to climatic changes, leading to the extinction 

 of certain forms of life. 



Several thinkers, notably Goethe, 1790, Oken and Erasmus 

 Darwin, 1794 suggested the possibility of change or transmutation. 

 Goethe held that the various organs of a plant were modifications 

 of the one organ the leaf. Darwin called attention to the similarity 

 between the arm of man and the wing of a bird, and claimed that this 

 indicated a relationship between the two. Apart from these men the 

 generally accepted opinion was that species were unalterable. 



The first serious attempt to grapple with the problem 

 was made by Lamarck (1744-1829), in his " Philosophic Zoologique," 

 in 1809, a little more than a century ago. In this book we see 

 recognised for the first time the fact that animals ate not just isolated 

 beings, but bear some relationship one to another, and also that they 

 can be arranged in a series from the most primitive to the highest 

 form. His series is not the one we now recognise, but it was a series, 

 and indicated an evolution which the author not only recognised 

 but tried to account for. At the same time he saw that vestigial 

 structures and remarkably well- developed organs needed some sort 

 of explanation. He held that new forms were made in the past 

 and are still being made by the modification of pre-existing species. 

 The modifications were due to the surroundings in which the animal 

 lived and its attempts to suit its life to them. Thus it was suggested 

 that the giraffe got its long neck by constantly trying to feed on leaves 

 higher and higher up the trees ; wading birds have long legs because 

 they wished to go into the water after their food but at the same 

 time avoid wetting their feathers. Conversely the mole's eyes are 

 very small because it no longer uses them, the teeth of the whale 

 disappear as it swallows its food without mastication, and so on. 



These views were based on the well-known fact that during the 

 life of an individual those organs that are used increase in size, 

 e.g. the arm of a blacksmith, and those that are not used decrease. 

 The actual alteration in the individual would be small but it would 

 be transmitted to the offspring, and when continued generation after 

 generation the effect would be cumulative. The particular view is 

 termed " use inheritance," or, since the character is acquired during 



