154 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE. 



Hilaire, while crediting Goethe, Buff on, and others 

 with having partly anticipated Lamarck, and giving 

 a very complete bibliographical description of the 

 subject, nowhere mentions Erasmus Darwin. It 

 does not seem probable that Darwin's work could 

 have been used by Lamarck, and have remained 

 wholly unknown to St. Hilaire. The dates and the 

 points of internal evidence still seem to justify 

 the suggestion of Charles Darwin, and the very 

 strong suspicion of Dr. Krause, that Lamarck was 

 familiar with the Zoonomia, and made use of it in 

 the development of his theory. 



M. Ch. Martins, the biographer of Lamarck, 

 calls attention to the fact that Laplace supported 

 Lamarck in the doctrine of the inheritance of ac- 

 quired habits, as applied to the origin of the mental 

 faculties of man ; and in the passages quoted by 

 Martins to sustain this point, we have evidence that 

 both Laplace and Lamarck anticipated Spencer. 

 We have seen that the general doctrine of transmis- 

 sion of acquired characters was an old one. It had 

 been expressed in France by others, by De Maillet, 

 for example. The most important testimony in 

 favour of Lamarck's originality is his own. It is in 

 a very striking passage in the introduction of the 

 last edition of his Animaux sans Vertebrcs (p. 2). 

 This was Lamarck's latest work. He says : — 



" I set forth my general theory. It deserves close attention ; 

 and as far as possible, men should determine how far I am well 

 founded in all that I have \vritten. I have, in fact, advanced a 



