RETROSPECT 355 



have seen originate with Empedocles and receive 

 the support of Epicurus and Lucretius, and 

 much more recently of Hume, Diderot and 

 others. In its relation to modern evolution, we see 

 it brought out afresh by Buffon, Malthus, Kant, 

 Wells, Matthew and Wallace. 



The second line — that of fortuitous fitness in 

 certain organs as expressed by Aristotle — is that 

 perfected by Charles Darwin, namely, the sur- 

 vival of types favored by the possession of some 

 fortuitously adaptive combination of parts or of 

 some favorable variation in a single organ. This 

 conception we also trace from Diderot through 

 Aristotle back to Empedocles; but it is appar- 

 ently a spontaneous and independent discovery 

 as we find it in Buffon and Helvetius, who trans- 

 mit it to Erasmus Darwin. Finally, it is again 

 rediscovered, or grandly evolved by induction 

 and observation, by Charles Darwin, who raises 

 it to its present magnitude as the central prin- 

 ciple of Selection in the living world. 



The Lamarckian concept of the origin of 

 Adaptation through the hereditary transmission 

 of acquired adaptations also arose among the 

 Greeks, in the form of a definite doctrine, as 

 shown in its discussion by Aristotle and by Plato. 

 Doubtless it was thus handed down to de Maillet, 

 Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, who first gave it its 

 full expression, Lamarck, who made it the foun- 



