THEORIES OF LAMARCK AND DARWIN 397 



"A deer with a neck which was longer by half 

 Than the rest of his family's — try not to laugh — 

 By stretching and stretching became a giraffe, 

 Which nobody can den v." 



The clever young woman, Miss Kendall, however, in her 

 Song of the Ichthyosaurus, showed clearness in grasping 

 Darwin's idea when she wrote: 



"Ere man was developed, our brother, 

 We swam, we ducked, and we dived, 

 And we dined, as a rule, on each other. 

 What matter? The toughest survived." 



This hits the idea of natural selection. The other two illus- 

 trations miss it, but strike the principle which was enunciated 

 by Lamarck. This confusion between Lamarckism and Dar- 

 winism is very wide-spread. 



Darwin's book on the Origin of Species, published in 

 1859, was epoch-making. If a group of scholars were asked 

 to designate the greatest book of the nineteenth century — 

 that is, the book which created the greatest intellectual stir — 

 it is likely that a large proportion of them would reply that 

 it is Darwin's Origin of Species. Its influence was so great 

 in the different domains of thought that we may observe a 

 natural cleavage between the thought in reference to nature 

 between 1859 and all preceding time. His other less widely 

 known books on Animals and Plants Under Domestication, 

 the Descent oj Man, etc., etc., are also important contributions 

 to the discussion of his theory. A brief account of Darwin, 

 the man, will be found in Chapter XIX. 



