THE STORY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCIENCE 



But such slightly increased development of the legs is 

 transmitted to the offspring of the bird, which in turn 

 develops its already improved legs by its individual ef- 

 forts, and transmits the improved tendency. Generation 

 after generation this is repeated, until the sum of the 

 infinitesimal variations, all in the same direction, results 

 in the production of the long-legged wading-bird. In 

 a similar way, through individual effort and transmitted 

 tendency, all the diversified organs of all creatures have 

 been developed the fin of the fish, the wing of the bird, 

 the hand of man ; nay, more, the fish itself, the bird, the 

 man, even. Collectively the organs make up the entire 

 organism; and what is true of the individual organs 

 must be true also of their ensemble, the living being. 



Whatever might be thought of Lamarck's explanation 

 of the cause of transmutation which really was that 

 already suggested by Erasmus Darwin the idea of the 

 evolution for which he contended was but the logical 

 extension of the conception that American animals are 

 the modified and degenerated descendants of European 

 animals. But people as a rule are little prone to follow 

 ideas to their logical conclusions, and in this case the 

 conclusions were so utterly opposed to the proximal 

 bearings of the idea that the whole thinking world 

 repudiated them with acclaim. The very persons who 

 had most eagerly accepted the idea of transmutation of 

 European species into American species, and similar lim- 

 ited variations through changed environment, because 

 of the relief thus given the otherwise overcrowded Ark, 

 were now foremost in denouncing such an extension of 

 the doctrine of transmutation as Lamarck proposed. 



And, for that matter, the leaders of the scientific world 

 were equally antagonistic to the Laraarckian hypothesis. 



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