IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 91 



living world. In the latter part of it, 

 Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Treviranus, and 

 Lamarck took up the work more vigor- 

 ously and with better qualifications. The 

 question of special creation, or evolution, 

 lay at the bottom of the fierce disputes 

 which broke out in the French Academy 

 between Cuvier and St.-Hilaire ; and, for 

 a time, the supporters of biological evolu- 

 tion were silenced, if not answered, by 

 the alliance of the greatest naturalist of 

 the age with their ecclesiastical oppo- 

 nents. Ca^ajtrp^hismj a short-sighted 

 teleology, and a still more short-sighted 

 orthodoxy, joined forces to crush evolu- 

 tion. 



Lyell and Poulett Scrope, in this 

 country, resumed the work of the Italians 

 and of Hutton ; and the former, aided by 

 a marvellous power of clear exposition, 

 placed upon an irrefragable basis the 

 truth that natural causes are competent 

 to account for all events, which can be 



