THEORIES OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



foundings in an early day, historically speaking, and 

 that the climatic and other conditions of the Nile 

 Valley had not since then changed. His theory, he 

 alleged, provided for the stability of species under 

 fixed conditions quite as well as for transmutation 

 under varying conditions. 



But, needless to say, the popular verdict lay with 

 Cuvier; talent won for the time against genius, and La- 

 marck was looked upon as an impious visionary. His 

 faith never wavered, however. He believed that he 

 had gained a true insight into the processes of animate 

 nature, and he reiterated his hypotheses over and over, 

 particularly in the introduction to his Histoire Naturelle 

 des Animaux sans Verttbres, in 1815, and in his Systkme 

 des Connaissances Positives de VHomme, in 1820. He 

 lived on till 1829, respected as a naturalist, but almost 

 unrecognized as a prophet. 



TENTATIVE ADVANCES 



While the names of Darwin and Goethe, and in par- 

 ticular that of Lamarck, must always stand out in high 

 relief in this generation as the exponents of the idea of 

 transmutation of species, there are a few others which 

 must not be altogether overlooked in this connection. 

 Of these the most conspicuous is that of Gottfried Rein- 

 hold Treviranus, a German naturalist physician, pro- 

 fessor of mathematics in the lyceum at Bremen. 



It was an interesting coincidence that Treviranus 

 should have published the first volume of his Biologie, 

 oder Philosophic der kbenden Natur, in which his views 

 on the transmutation of species were expounded, in 

 1802, the same twelvemonth in which Lamarck's first 



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