FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE 299 



the method followed by Nature, as well as Ijy our- 

 selves. She has wished to create races conformable to 

 her needs; and with a comparatively small number 

 of primitive types, she has successively, and at dif- 

 ferent periods, given birth to all the animal and veg- 

 etable species which people the earth. 



We cannot find in this passage clear proof of 

 anticipation of Darwinism. As Darwin himself 

 observed : 



I declare I cannot see a much closer approach to 

 Wallace and me in Naudin than in Lamarck — we all 

 agree in modification and descent. . . . But I can- 

 not find one word like the struggle for existence and 

 natural selection.^ 



The survival of the fittest, as due to the posses- 

 sion of favorable variations, was evidently not 

 in Naudin's mind ; still less is it in his system of 

 Evolution as explained above. A very careful 

 reading of this passage shows that in the com- 

 parison of methods pursued by man and by Na- 

 ture, his emphasis is plainly not upon the natural 

 selection but upon the natural succession of 

 types. Man causes types to succeed each other 

 artificially; Nature also causes types to succeed 

 each other; he does not say that Nature selects 

 the fittest types. A single passage like this is 

 often very misleading ; we must always study the 



iLi/e and Letters. Letter to Hooker, Dec. 23, 1859. 



