306 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



from the standpoint of originality. It would be 

 interesting to know whether Wells, for example, 

 who so clearly set forth a natural selection the- 

 ory in 1813, had seen any of the other 'anticipa- 

 tions' which have been quoted. So with the other 

 'selectionists,' Matthew and Naudin. There was 

 a series of original writers who independently 

 approached Evolution upon the embryological 

 side, such as Meckel, von Baer, and Serres. 



Others advocated or independently advanced 

 the laws of geographic variation suggested by 

 Buffon, of modification due to the direct action 

 of environment under the influence of wide geo- 

 graphical distribution. Among these were Her- 

 bert von Buch, Haldeman, and Schaaffhausen 

 the anthropologist. We find a partial revival of 

 Goethe's doctrines by the botanists Schleiden and 

 Lecoq. Lamarckism found very few followers. 



The Greek idea of pre-existent germs of spe- 

 cies was revived by Keyserling. The Aristotelian 

 notion of an internal impulse or tendency to- 

 ward progression was more or less clearly revived 

 by Chambers in the Vestiges of Creation and by 

 Richard Owen in his essay. Nature of Limbs. 



Other writers who expressed a more or less 

 positive belief in the mutability of species were 

 Virey^ in 1817, Grant^ in 1826, Rafinesque^ in 



^Article, "Especes," Diet. d'Hist. Naturelle de Deferville. 

 ^Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. XIV, p. 283. 

 ^New Flora of North America, 1836, pp. 6, 18. 



