EVOLUTION 165 



making of function a sort of i 111 material and independent entity 

 which constructs a material organ in order to lodge within it. 

 No such idea is to be found in all the works of Lamarck. 

 He formulates Lis law in the following terms : " In every 

 animal which is still undergoing development, the frequent 

 and sustained use of any one organ increases its si/.e and power, 

 whereas the constant neglect of the use of such organ weakens 

 and deteriorates it. so that it finally disappears." 



In his expression of this law Lamarck insists on the fact 

 that organization precedes function. Tie affirms only that 

 function, i.e. action and reaction, modifies the organ; or, in 

 other words, that organisms are modelled by the action of 

 exterior forces acting upon them. It is in this sense only 

 that function may be said to make an organ, but this 

 mode of expression should be avoided, as it is apt to be 

 misunderstood. 



Astronomy teaches us that our globe was detached from 

 the sun in an incandescent state, and geology asserts that this 

 earth has passed through a period of long ages when its 

 temperature was incompatible with the existence of life. It 

 was only with the cooling of the earth crust that it was 

 possible for living beings to make their appearance. Hence 

 they must of necessity have been produced spontaneously 

 from terrestrial material under the influences of chemical and 

 physical forces. This opinion imposes itself on all who reflect 

 and judge freely. In the same way the doctrine of evolution 

 necessitates as a corollary the doctrine of spontaneous genera- 

 tion. The doctrine of evolution should reconstitute every link 

 in the chain of beings from the simplest to the most compli- 

 cated ; it cannot afford to leave out the most important of all, 

 viz. the missing link between the inorganic and the organic 

 kingdoms. If there is a chain, it must be continuous in all its 

 parts, there can be no solution of continuity. 



Evolutionists like Lamarck and Hacekel admit spontaneous 

 generation, not as the most probable, but as the only possible 

 explanation of the phenomenon of life. 



Lamarck shows us the apparition of living things at a 

 certain epoch of the earth's evolution, and the gradual develop- 



