THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY 



Cuvier in particular, once the pupil of Lamarck, but now 

 his colleague, and in authority more than his peer, stood 

 out against the transmutation doctrine with all his force. 

 He argued for the absolute fixity of species, bringing to 

 bear the resources of a mind which, as a mere repository 

 of facts, perhaps never was excelled. As a final and 

 tangible proof of his position, he brought forward the 

 bodies of ibises that had been embalmed by the ancient 

 Egyptians, and showed by comparison that these do not 

 differ in the slightest particular from the ibises that visit 

 the Nile to-day. Lamarck replied that this proved noth- 

 ing except that the ibis had become perfectly adapted 

 to its Egyptian surroundings in an early day, historically 

 speaking, and that the climatic and other conditions of 

 the Nile Valley had not since then changed. His the- 

 ory, he alleged, provided for the stability of species 

 under fixed conditions quite as well as for transmuta- 

 tion under varying conditions. 



But, needless to say, the popular verdict lay with Cu- 

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

 marck was looked upon as as impious visionary. His 

 faith never wavered, however. He believed that he had 

 gained a true insight into the processes of animate nat- 

 ure, and he reiterated his hypotheses over and over, par- 

 ticularly in the introduction to his Histoire naturelle des 

 Animaux sans Vertebras, in 1815, and in his Systeme des 

 Connaissances positives de Vllomme, in 1820. He lived 

 on till 1829, respected as a naturalist, but almost unrec- 

 ognized as a prophet. 



in 



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

 ticular that of Lamarck, must always stand out in high 



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