

CHAPTEE VII 



CHARLES DARWIN AND DARWINISM 



The Origin of Species Darwinian Selection The gaps in Palaeon- 

 tology The Descent of Man. 



THE transformist ideas of Lamarck and of Geoffroy- 

 Saint-Hilaire found but a very feeble echo among 

 contemporary naturalists. They succumbed for the 

 moment in France especially to the prepondera- 

 ting and somewhat masterful influence of Georges 

 Cuvier and his school. It is with great difficulty 

 that we find, during the period of forty years that 

 elapsed between Lamarck and Darwin, a few 

 scattered naturalists giving vent, more or less 

 vaguely, to transformist opinions. Such were Her- 

 bert, Rafinesque, Naudin, and Hooker, in botany ; 

 Grant, Haldemann, Schaffhausen, Isidore, Geoffroy- 

 Saint-Hilaire, and Wallace, in zoology ; and d'Omalius 

 d'Halloy and Keyserling, among geologists. When 

 Charles Darwin's work on the Origin of Species 

 appeared in 1859, this event, which marks a memor- 

 able date in the history of natural sciences, might 

 be regarded as a veritable revelation. 



Darwin's work is too well known to need being 

 set forth here at any length. It is enough to re- 

 member that the master idea of the learned English 

 zoologist was to apply to natural evolution the pro- 

 cesses of artificial selection effected by English 



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