332 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



acquaintance of Doctor Grant, who, on one oc- 

 casion, burst forth into high praise of the doc- 

 trines of Lamarck. Darwin had even earlier read 

 the Zoonomia, but without receiving any effect 

 from it. "Nevertheless," he says, "it is probable 

 that the hearing, rather early in life, such views 

 maintained and praised, may have favoured my 

 upholding them in a different form in my Origin 

 of Species,'' It is very evident from all Darwin's 

 criticisms of Lamarck that he never studied him 

 carefully in the original, so that all he owed at 

 this time to his grandfather and to Lamarck was 

 the general idea of the evolution of life. Later, 

 however, he took with him on the Beagle Lyell's 

 Principles of Geology,^ in which Lamarck's doc- 

 trines are admirably set forth and fully discussed, 

 so that there is little doubt that the problem of 

 transformation was, after all, most strongly 

 brought to him by Lamarck indirectly through 

 Lyell's able treatment. 



In 1834, during the voyage, Darwin was still 

 a special creationist, yet the problem of mutabil- 

 ity haunted him, as it was brought home by the 

 strong evidences of change which met him on 

 every side. He says:^ 



I had been deeply impressed by discovering in the 

 Pampean formation great fossil animals covered 



iThe first volume appeared in 1830, the second in 1832; Dar- 

 win's voyage lasted from 1831 to 1836. 



^Life and Letters, last edition, authorized ed.. No. 604, 1896, 

 vol. I, p. 67. 



