ii8 IGNORABIMUS ET RESTRINGAMUR. 



interesting of all sciences, the history of evolution, 

 to find its most important steps and its greatest 

 discoveries met by the firmest and most persistent 

 opposition. For while Wolff's fundamental theory of 

 epigenesis, which was promulgated in 1759, was not 

 recognised until 1812, Lamarck's theory of descent, 

 founded in 1809, had to wait fully fifty years before 

 Darwin, in 1859, showed it to be the greatest acquisi- 

 tion of modern science ; and during that period, in 

 spite of all the progress made in empirical science, 

 how persistently this most comprehensive of all bio- 

 logical theories was combated. We need only re- 

 collect how, in 1830, the celebrated George Cuvier 

 silenced its most eloquent supporter, Geoffroy St. 

 Hilaire, in the midst of the Paris Academy, and how 

 almost at the same time its founder, the great Lamarck, 

 ended his life in blindness, misery and want, while 

 his opponent Cuvier was enjoying the highest honours 

 and the greatest splendour. And yet we know now 

 that the despised and contemned Lamarck and Geof- 

 froy had already grasped truths of the highest signifi- 

 cance, while Cuvier's much-admired and universally- 

 accepted theory of creation is now on all hands 

 neglected as an absurd and untenable delusion. But 

 as neither Haller as against Wolff, nor Cuvier as 

 against Lamarck, could permanently hinder the 



