322 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



entirely overruled by the authority of Cuvier.^ In 

 England, where geology and natural history were always 

 popular pursuits, the question was one of more than 

 scientific interest : it was one which had been appropri- 

 ated by general literature,'' and the larger bearings of 



^ Huxley describes the position 

 of France and Germany to the doc- 

 trine of descent as follows: "In 

 France the influence of Elie de 

 Beaumont and of Floureus, to say 

 nothing of the ill-will of other 

 powerful members of the Institute, 

 produced for a long time the effect 

 of a conspiracy of silence. . . . 

 Germany took time to consider ; 

 Bronn produced a . . . translation 

 of the ' Origin ' . . . ; but I do not 

 call to mind that any scientific 

 notability declared himself publicly 

 in 1860. None of us dreamed that 

 in the course of a few years the 

 strength (and perliaps, I may add, 

 the weakness) of ' Darwiuismus ' 

 would have its most extensive and 

 most brilliant illustrations in the 

 land of learning. If a foreigner 

 may presume to speculate on the 

 cause of this curious interval of 

 silence, I fancy it was that one 

 moiety of the German biologists 

 were orthodox at any price and the 

 other moiety as distinctly hetero- 

 dox. The latter were evolutionists 

 d priori alreadj'," kc. (' Life of Dar- 

 win,' vol. ii. p. 186). The two men 

 abroad to whose opinion English 

 biologists of that day would prob- 

 ably attach the greatest value were 

 Karl Ernst von Baer and Milne- 

 Edwards. The former " wrote to 

 Huxley in August 1860, expressing 

 his general assent to evolutionist 

 views" {loc. cit., p. 186, note). It 

 was von Baer from whom Huxley 

 admits to Leuckart that he learnt 

 the "value of development as the 

 criterion of morphological views" 

 (' Life of Huxley,' vol. i. p. 163). Von 

 Baer later ou qualified his adher- 



ence, admitting development only 

 within the regions of the different 

 types which he had established (see 

 the second volume of his collected 

 papers). The opinions of the great 

 contemporary French zoologist, 

 Henri Milne-Edwards (1800-1SS5), 

 are fully given in the last chapter of 

 his very interesting ' Rapport sur 

 les progres recents des Sciences 

 zoologiques en France' (1867), 

 where he also refers to the writings 

 of Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 who in France continued to some 

 extent the line of research and 

 reasoning which, through his father, 

 Etienne Geoffroy, and Lamarck, 

 dates back to Buffon, Bonnet, and 

 other philosophical naturalists, of 

 whom, under the name of " Trans- 

 formistes," M. Edmond Perier has 

 given a connected account in his 

 very valuable historical work, ' La 

 Philosophic zoologique avant Dar- 

 win " (1884). Milne -Edwards re- 

 mained to the end unconvinced by 

 the arguments of Darwin. He had 

 already in 1853 set forth his ideas 

 referring to the general problems of 

 zoology, and he repeated them in 

 1867 (loc. cit., p. 432 sqq.) It is, 

 however, well to note that ever 

 since 1827 [loc. cit., p. 453, note) he 

 had contributed largely to the 

 furtherance of the genetic view by 

 his principle that progress in nature 

 depends on division of labour. In 

 his subsequent writings he dwells 

 with much success on this principle 

 of the " division of physiological 

 labour." (See Spencer, 'Biology,' 

 voh i. p. 160.) 



'■^ About ten years after the con- 

 troversy about the ' Vestiges ' had 



