u 



156 fjiom lamasck to st. hilaire. 



Lamarck. 



Lamarck (i 744-1829), as the fniinHer of the| 

 complete modern_theorY_of_pescent, is the mostS 

 prominent figure__bet_ween_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 

 as put forth only a few years after he had turned 

 rom Botany to Zoology, without gaining the great- 

 st admiration for his genius. No one has been 

 ore misunderstood, or judged with more partiality 

 ^y 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 

 (^isdainful 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 w^hich 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, 

 thatjiis theoryjLvas_final ly taken_ _up_andjdefended \ 

 by Charles Darwin himse lf, and^thaLJ Lfo" ^ the 1 

 very_heaTt_of^the__systejn_pf_Herbert Spencer. / 

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



