156 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE. 



LAMARCK. 



LAMARCK (1744-1829), as the founder of the 

 complete modern theory of Descent, is the most 

 prominent figure between Aristotle and Darwin. 

 One cannot compare his Philosophic Zoologique with 

 all previous and contemporary contributions to the 

 Evolution theory, or learn the extraordinary diffi- 

 culties under which he laboured, and that this work 

 was put forth only a few years after he had turned 

 from Botany to Zoology, without gaining the great- 

 est admiration for his genius. No one has been 

 more misunderstood, or judged with more partiality 

 by over or under praise. The stigma placed upon 

 his writings by Cuvier, who greeted every fresh 

 edition of his works as a ' nouvelle folie] and the 

 disdainful allusions to him by Charles Darwin (the 

 only writer of whom Darwin ever spoke in this 

 tone), long placed him in the light of a purely ex- 

 travagant, speculative thinker. Yet, as a fresh in- 

 stance of the certainty with which men of science 

 finally obtain recognition, it is gratifying to note 

 the admiration which has been accorded to him in 

 Germany by Haeckel and others, by his country- 

 men, and by a large school of American and Eng- 

 lish writers of the present day ; to note, further, 

 that his theory was finally taken up and defended 

 by Charles Darwin himself, and that it forms the 

 very heart of the system of Herbert Spencer. 



None the less, it is now a question under discus- 



