THEORIES OF EVOLUTION 147 



prevailed. Linnaeus had announced himself in favor 

 of the idea, and, so generally was his authority recog- 

 nized, that scarcely anyone thought of bringing it 

 into question. But Lamarck saw that species vary 

 in a state of nature to such an extent that they pass 

 beyond the limits that can, in reason, be assigned to 

 species. 



Lamarck's theory, although so definite, did not 

 find a foothold during his lif etime and the fifty years 

 between 1809, when his book was published, and 

 1859, when Darwin's Origin of Species appeared, was 

 characterized by the temporary disappearance of 

 the theory of organic evolution. His ideas were 

 ridiculed by Cuvier and were practically laughed out 

 of court. Charles Darwin also paid little heed to 

 Lamarck as a predecessor. But, it is a significant 

 circumstance that, nearly a century after being 

 promulgated, Lamarck's principle of use-inheritance 

 and the beginning of variations should have been 

 revived, and, under the title of Neo-Lamarckism, 

 should occupy such a prominent place in the discus- 

 sions regarding the factors of organic evolution that 

 are being carried on at the present time. The re- 

 vival of Lamarckism is especially owing to the 

 paleontological investigations of Cope, Hyatt and 



