THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



543 



carried him beyond mere species-mongering in 1850, one- 

 half of Lamarck's arguments were obsolete and the other 

 half erroneous, or defective, in virtue of omitting to deal 

 with the various classes of evidence which had been brought 

 to light since his time. Moreover his one suggestion as to 

 the cause of the gradual modification of species — effort ex- 

 cited by change of conditions — was, on the face of it, inap- 

 plicable to the whole vegetable world. I do not think that 

 any impartial judge who reads the * Philosophic Zoologique ' 

 now, and who afterwards takes up Lyell's trenchant and 

 effectual criticism (published as far back as 1830), will be 

 disposed to allot to Lamarck a much higher place in the 

 establishment of biological evolution than that which Bacon 

 assigns to himself in relation to physical science generally, — • 

 buccinator tantum/" 



But, by a curious irony of fate, the same influence which 

 led me to put as little faith in modern speculations on this 

 subject, as in the venerable traditions recorded in the first 

 two chapters of Genesis, was perhaps more potent than any 

 other in keeping alive a sort of pious conviction that Evolu- 

 tion, after all, would turn out true. I have recently read 

 afresh the first edition of the * Principles of Geology ' ; and 

 when I consider that this remarkable book had been nearly 

 thirty years in everybody's hands, and that it brings home to 

 any reader of ordinary intelligence a great principle and a 

 great fact — the principle, that the past must be explained by 

 the present, unless good cause be shown to the contrary ; 

 and the fact, that, so far as our knowledge of the past history 

 of life on our globe goes, no such cause can be shown f — I 

 cannot but believe that Lyell, for others, as for myself, was 



* Erasmus Darwin first promulgated Lamarck's fundamental concep- 

 tions, and, with greater logical consistency, he had applied them to 

 plants. But the advocates of his claims have failed to show that he, in 

 any respect, anticipated the central idea of the * Origin of Species.' 



f The same principle and the same fact guide and result from all 

 sound historical investigation. Grote's ' History of Greece ' is a product of 

 the same intellectual movement as Lyell's 'Principles.' 



