LAMARCK. 177 



As animals progressed, new forms were constantly 

 arising in the primitive scale. One of the strongest 

 objections which Lamarck had to meet, one which 

 shows that his theory of_Tr ansmutat ion excited a 

 lively discussion at the time, as Darwinism did after- 

 wards, was the persistency of certain lower types. 

 When Geoffrey St. Hilaire brought back his rich 

 collections of mummied cats and other animals 

 from the tombs of Egypt, and it was found that 

 these were identical with the actual living repre- 

 sentatives of the same species, and that these species 

 had existed without variation between two and three 

 thousand years, it was considered very strong evi- 

 dence against the Transmutation theory. Lamarck 

 replied that in Egypt there had been substantially 

 no change of environment, both the soil and the 

 climate had remained the same during that great 

 period ; that being the case, no new habits had been 

 imposed upon animals, and the persistence of their 

 characters was therefore readily explained. 



It is also noteworthy that Lamarck, adopting for 

 animals the indirect action of environment, adopted 

 for plants a theory of the direct action of environ- 

 ment, in the absence of any nervous system whereby' 

 these organisms could respond to external stimuli. 

 He thus coincided with Buffon in regard to plant 

 evolution. He cites numerous instances of rapid 

 modification by drought, by change of habitat, by 

 cultivation, and concludes: " All is effected by 

 changes undergone in the nutrition of the plant. 



