Evolutionism and Darwinism. 53 



&quot; He first did the eminent service,&quot; says Darwin, 

 &quot; of arousing attention to the probability of all 

 change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic, 

 world being the result of law, and not of mirac 

 ulous interposition.&quot; He held that organic beings 

 were modified by the action of the physical con 

 ditions of life, by the crossing of already existing 

 forms, and by the effects of habit of use or of 

 disuse. It is due to constant use, e.g., in brows 

 ing on the branches of trees that the neck of the 

 giraffe has grown to such an abnormal length. 



Lamarck was the true precursor of Darwin. 

 And Darwin s &quot; Origin of Species &quot; was the cul 

 minating point of evolutionary biology. That 

 work may be called the embodiment of its au 

 thor s intellectual life from his twenty-second to 

 his fiftieth year. What, now, was the theory 

 which Darwin struck out and elaborated in these 

 twenty-eight years ? What was Darwin s original 

 contribution to that hypothesis of evolution with 

 which his name is now so generally associated ? 

 Well, in the first place, it was not the general / \i 

 theory of development the theory which sup- ! / 

 poses that everything, instead of being created as 

 it is, has reached its present precise and deter 

 minate form only after passing through an infin 

 itude of lower stages. And, secondly, it was not 



