212 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE 



LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE ORIGIN 

 OF PLANTS. 



ITS CONSEQUENCES. 



I HAVE said tliat the curiously-mixed semi-marine, semi- 

 lacustrine flora of the Lake of Stennis became associated in 

 my mind, like the ancient Asterolepis of Stromness, with the 

 development hypothesis. The fossil, as has been shown, re- 

 presents not inadequately the geologic evidence in the ques- 

 tion : the mixed vegetation of the lake may be regarded as 

 forming a portion of the phytological evidence. 



" All life," says Oken, " is from the sea. Where the sea 

 organism, by self-elevation, succeeds in attaining into form, 

 there issues forth from it a higher organism. Love arose out 

 of the sea-foam. The primary mucus (that in which elec- 

 tricity originates life) was, and is still, generated in those very 

 parts of the sea where the water is in contact with earth and 

 air, and thus upon the shores. The first creation of the 

 organic took place where the first mountain summits pro- 

 jected out of the water, — indeed, without doubt, in India, 

 if the Himalaya be the highest mountain. The first organic 

 forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from the shallow 

 parts of the sea^ Maillet wrote to exactly the same effect 

 a full century ago. " In a word," we find him saying, in his 



