COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



longer, observing and experimenting in seclu- 

 sion. The almost immediate acquiescence of the 

 majority of naturalists in Mr. Darwin's views 

 shows that in 1859 the scientific world was fully 

 prepared for them. The flimsiness of the spe- 

 cial creation hypothesis was more or less clearly 

 perceived by a large number of biologists, who 

 were only withheld from committing themselves 

 to the derivation theory by the circumstance 

 that no satisfactory explanation of the process of 

 development had been propounded. No one 

 had assigned an adequate cause for such a phe- 

 nomenon as the gradual evolution of a new 

 species ; and sundry attempts w^hich had been 

 made in this direction were so obviously futile 

 as to excite both distrust and ridicule. Lamarck, 

 for example, placing an exaggerated stress upon 

 an established law of biology, contended that 

 " desires, by leading to increased actions of mo- 

 tor organs, may induce further development of 

 such organs,'* and that, consequently, animals 

 may become directly adapted through structural 

 changes to changes in their environment. We 

 shall see, as we continue the discussion, that such 

 directly adaptive changes really take place ; but 

 Lamarck ill understood their character, and in- 

 deed could not have been expected to under- 

 stand it, since in his day dynamical biology was 

 in its earliest infancy.^ By insisting on volition 

 ^ Lamarck also tried to explain organic development meta- 



8 



