FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE 223 



mals were evolved, not, as Euffon supposed, by 

 the direct external action of environment, but 

 by environment acting upon internal structure 

 through the nervous system, and by the trans- 

 mission of the modifications thus produced. As 

 regards the origin of plants, Lamarck believed 

 with Buff on that they were evolved by the direct 

 action of environment. Lamarck nowhere makes 

 any allusion to the Zoonomia, and de Lanessan 

 has pointed out that he also pays very scant 

 tribute to Buffon, though there is the strongest 

 internal evidence that Lamarck was largely influ- 

 enced by the writings of Buffon's second period. 

 How shall we explain this coincidence or ap- 

 parent plagiarism? We must adopt one of two 

 alternatives. One is, as later in the famous and 

 quite as closely parallel Wallace-Darwin case, 

 that both naturalisjts arrived independently at the 

 same conclusions, influenced alike by the writ- 

 ings of Linnseus and the earlier writings of Buf- 

 fon, also by their own observations upon Nature ; 

 or, we must suppose that Lamarck borrowed 

 freely from Darwin without giving him credit. 

 We should hesitate before adopting the latter 

 alternative, when we consider that the inter- 

 change of thought between the two countries was 

 not so constant as at present, also that Erasmus 

 Darwin's views were buried rather obscurely in 

 a great quarto mainly devoted to medicine and 



