APPENDIX 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 



OF THE PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN 

 OF SPECIES, 



PREVIOUSLY TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE 

 FIRST EDITION OF THIS WORK 



I WILL here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on 

 the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of nat- 

 uralists believed that species were immutable productions, and had 

 been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by 

 many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have be- 

 lieved that species undergo modification, and that the existing 

 forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-exist- 

 ing forms. Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical 

 writers,* the first author who in modern times has treated it in 

 a scientific spirit was Buff on. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly 

 at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or 

 means of the transformation of species^ I need not here enter on 

 details. 

 Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject 



♦Aristotle, in his "Physicae Auscultationes" (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after re- 

 marking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more 

 than it falls to spoil the farmer's com when threshed out of doors, applies 

 the same argument to organization; and adds (as translated by Mr. Clair 

 Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), "So what hinders the dif- 

 ferent parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in 

 nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, 

 adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating 

 the food ; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result 

 of accident. And in like manner as to other parts in which there appears to 

 exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things together 

 (that is, all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for 

 the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately con- 

 stituted by an internal spontaneity; and whatsoever things were not thus 

 constituted, perished and still perish." We here see the principle of natural 

 selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the 

 principle, is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth. 



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