FOUNDERS OF TRANSFORMISM 25 



either disappeared, or will do so in time. We here 

 for the first time find a fairly clear conception of 

 the struggle for life to which the works of Charles 

 Darwin were a little later to claim in such a 

 masterly manner the attention of the world of 

 scholars. 



2. The Founders of Transformism : LAMARCK, 

 ETIENNE GEOFFROY-SAINT-HILAIRE, AND DARWIN. 

 Everything has long since been said on the works 

 of the illustrious founders of transformism La- 

 marck, Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, and Darwin. Many 

 scholars * have set forth and discussed at length 

 their conceptions, which, moreover, differ much 

 from each other, on the mechanism and the 

 processes of evolution of living beings. Among 

 these are the influence of the wants and habits 

 on the development, or, on the contrary, as 

 Lamarck said, on the atrophy of the organs ; the 

 direct action of the surrounding media, as noted 

 by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire ; and the struggle for life, 

 and, as a consequence, natural selection complicated 

 by sexual selection, as set forth by Darwin. At the 

 present day, biologists are still arguing as to the 

 comparative value and importance of these different 

 causes which modify living beings, and it certainly 

 seems to result from these discussions that if some 

 of them appear to exercise a partial influence on 

 the phenomena of morphological evolution, none 

 of them yet suffices to give a satisfactory and 



* Two very interesting works may be consulted on this subject : 

 Le Transformisme (1888) and La Philosophic Zoologique avant Darwin 

 (1884) ; both by M. Edraond Perrier. 



