12 Darwin's Predecessors 



misses the connection between this struggle and the Survival of the 

 Fittest 1 ." 



Lamarck 2 (1744 — 1829) seems to have thought out his theory 

 of evolution without any knowledge of Erasmus Darwin's which it 

 closely resembled. The central idea of his theory was the cumulative 

 inheritance of functional modifications. "Changes in environment 

 bring about changes in the habits of animals. Changes in their 

 wants necessarily bring about parallel changes in their habits. If 

 new wants become constant or very lasting, they form new habits, 

 the new habits involve the use of new parts, or a different use of old 

 parts, which results finally in the production of new organs and the 

 modification of old ones." He differed from Buffon in not attaching 

 importance, as far as animals are concerned, to the direct influence 

 of the environment, "for environment can effect no direct change 

 whatever upon the organisation of animals," but in regard to 

 plants he agreed with Buffon that external conditions directly 

 moulded them. 



Treviranus 3 (1/76 — 1837), whom Huxley ranked beside Lamarck, 

 was on the whole Buffonian, attaching chief importance to the 

 influence of a changeful environment both in modifying and in 

 eliminating, but he was also Goethian, for instance in his idea that 

 species like individuals pass through periods of growth, full bloom, 

 and decline. "Thus, it is not only the great catastrophes of Nature 

 which have caused extinction, but the completion of cycles of 

 existence, out of which new cycles have begun." A characteristic 

 sentence is quoted by Prof. Osborn : " In every living being there 

 exists a capability of an endless variety of form-assumption ; each 

 possesses the power to adapt its organisation to the changes of the 

 outer world, and it is this power, put into action by the change of the 

 universe, that has raised the simple zoophytes of the primitive world 

 to continually higher stages of organisation, and has introduced a 

 countless variety of species into animate Nature." 



Goethe 4 (1749 — 1832), who knew Buffon's work but not Lamarck's, 

 is peculiarly interesting as one of the first to use the evolution-idea 

 as a guiding hypothesis, e.g. in the interpretation of vestigial structures 

 in man, and to realise that organisms express an attempt to make a 

 compromise between specific inertia and individual change. He gave 



1 Osborn, op. cit. p. 142. 



2 See: E. Perrier, La Philosophie Zoologique avant Darwin, Paris, 1884; A. de 

 Quatrefages, Darwin et ses Precurseurs Francais, Paris, 1870 ; Packard, op. cit. ; also 

 Glaus, Lamarck als Begriinder der Descendenzlehre, Wien, 1888 ; Haeckel, Natural History 

 of Creation, Eng. transl. London, 1879; Lang, Zur Charakteristik der Forschungswege 

 von Lamarck und Darwin, Jena, 1889. 



3 See Huxley's article "Evolution in Biology," Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edit.), 

 1878, pp. 744—751, and Sully's article, "Evolution in Philosophy," ibid. pp. 751—772. 



4 See Haeckel, Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck, Jena, 1882. 



