136 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xm. 



century, when La Place explained Iris views as to the 

 evolution of the stellar universe and of solar and planet- 

 ary systems in his celebrated Nebular Hypothesis; and 

 about the same time Lamarck published his " Philo- 

 sophic Zoologique," containing an elaborate exposition 

 of his theory of the progressive development of animals 

 and plants. But this theory gained few converts among 

 naturalists, partly because Lamarck was before his time, 

 and also because the causes he alleged did not seem ade- 

 quate to produce the wonderful adaptations we every- 

 where see in nature. During the first half of the present 

 century, owing to the fact that Brazil, South Africa, and 

 Australia then became for the first time accessible to 

 English collectors, the treasures of the whole world of 

 nature were poured in upon us so rapidly that the com- 

 paratively limited number of naturalists were fully 

 occupied in describing the new species and endeavoring 

 to discover true methods of classification. The need of 

 any general theory of how species came into existence 

 was hardly felt; and there was a general impression that 

 the problem was at that time insoluble, and that we must 

 spend at least another century in collecting, describing, 

 and classifying, before we had any chance of dealing 

 successfully with the origin of species. But the subject 

 of evolution was ever present to the more philosophic 

 thinkers, though the great majority of naturalists and 

 men of science held firmly to the dogma that each species 

 of animal and plant was a distinct creation, though how 

 produced was admitted to be both totally unknown and 

 almost, if not quite, unimaginable. 



The vague ideas of those who favored evolution were 

 first set forth in systematic form, with much literary skill 



