EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 313 



given direction tends to develop the organ in that direc- 

 tion. But a little consideration showed that, though 

 Lamarck had seized what, as far as it goes, is a true 

 cause of modification, it is a cause the actual effects of 

 which are wholly inadequate to account for any consider- 

 able modification in animals, and which can have no in- 

 fluence at all in the vegetable world ; and probably 

 nothing contributed so much to discredit evolution, in 

 the early part of this century, as the floods of easy ridi- 

 cule which were poured upon this part of Lamarck's 

 speculation. The theory of natural selection, or survival 

 of the fittest, was suggested by Wells in 1813, and fur- 

 ther elaborated by Matthew in 1831. But the pregnant 

 suggestions of these writers remained practically unno- 

 ticed and forgotten, until the theory was independently 

 devised and promulgated by Darwin and Wallace in 

 1858, and the effect of its publication was immediate 

 and profound. 



Those who were unwilling to accept evolution, with- 

 out better grounds than such as are offered by Lamarck, 

 or the author of that particularly unsatisfactory book, 

 the " Yestiges of the Natural History of the Creation," 

 and who therefore preferred to suspend their judgment 

 on the question, found, in the principle of selective 

 breeding, pursued in all its applications with marvellous 

 knowledge and skill by Mr. Darwin, a valid explanation 

 of the occurrence of varieties and races ; and they saw 

 clearly that, if the explanation would apply to species, it 

 would not only solve the problem of their evolution, but 



