198 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE. 



studies it in the germ, in its development, and in its 

 future. He projects the idea of unity, which Buffon 

 had just touched upon." There were three branches 

 of study in which St. Hilaire was most deeply inter- 

 ested. First, Comparative Anatomy; second. Tera- 

 tology ; and third, what came to be known as 

 Philosophical Anatomy when he finally embodied it 

 in the Philosophie Aiiatoniique. This was published 

 in iSiS, and was the work so greatly admired by 

 Goethe. The narrower range of his studies, the 

 dominating influence of his ' unity of type ' principle 

 and the sudden departures from type seen in his 

 pathological studies, shaped the growth of St. 

 Hilaire's limited and peculiar view of Evolution. 



He has been mistakenly spoken of as the suc- 

 cessor of Lamarck. It is simply true that he took 

 up the general doctrines of transformism at the 

 point where Lamarck could no longer defend them. 

 As a remarkable coincidence, Buffon, Lamarck, and 

 Hilaire all became transformists at the same, age of 

 life. His son, Isidore St. Hilaire, as well as Quatre- 

 fages and Perrier, show very clearly that he was 

 more properly the disciple and expander of Buffon. 

 He denied the inherited influences of habit, which 

 formed Lamarck's central thought, and maintained 

 that the direct action of environment was the sole 

 cause of transformation, always regarding organisms 

 as comparatively passive in their ' milieu' Thus he 

 found it necessary to greatly differentiate Buffon's 

 conception of environment, especially on its chemi- 



