MODERN SCIENCE. 137 



His will once for all on His creation, and provide for all its 

 countless varieties by this one original impress, than by special 

 acts of creation, to be perpetually modifying what He had 

 previously made." 



By Darwin's explanation it is easy to reconcile the 

 divergent views entertained by Cuvier and Geoffrey St. Hilaire. 

 Truth being one, and these two great men being possessed 

 of sound knowledge, it was likely that it would be found that 

 they were both right, and that they were both in the possession 

 of truth in the main was shown by another truth the one 

 Darwin brought to light. For the law of the survival of the 

 fittest made it imperative that each part of an animal should 

 be exactly fitted to meet its wants and should work har- 

 moniously with the rest of the body, as Cuvier demonstrated 

 it to be the case; whilst the law of natural selection made it 

 equally imperative that if animals have been gradually 

 altered from one another, by the instinct to pair with those 

 exactly like themselves though they might slightly differ 

 from the rest of their species, they should be made on one 

 plan as St. Hilaire showed they were. Cuvier's doctrine of 

 immutability, however, was totally destroyed by the same 

 stroke. Darwinism goes much further : it accounts for the 

 fact that existing animals in one continent are of the same 

 nature as those found in the same area in a fossil state, though 

 slightly differing from them ; and finally it accounts for the 

 fact that " lower forms of life are (necessarily) found in the 

 most ancient geological formations." 



It is fitting here, in order to prevent misconception, that 

 the place which Darwin holds in the history of evolutionism 

 should be clearly determined. The doctrine of evolution,* as 

 we have repeatedly seen, originated long before Darwin. 

 Buffon had foreshadowed it in the middle of last century; 

 Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1795) thought species derived by 

 modification from one another, and Goethe endorsed that 

 view. At the same time Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's 

 grandfather, adopting the same theory, went further still 

 by enunciating some of the causes of animal development. 

 Lamarck (1801), besides holding that all species were 

 * The doctrine can be traced to India. 



