278 OBITUARY X 



modification of Lamarck's doctrine of development 

 and progression. If this is your deliberate opinion 

 there is nothing to be said, but it does not seem 

 so to me. Plato, Buffon, my grandfather, before 

 Lamarck and others, propounded the obvious view 

 that if species were not created separately they 

 must have descended from other species, and I 

 can see nothing else in common between the 

 " Origin " and Lamarck. I believe this way of 

 putting the case is very injurious to its acceptance, 

 as it implies necessary progression, and closely 

 connects Wallace's and my views with what I con- 

 sider, after two deliberate readings, as a wretched 

 book, and one from which (I well remember to my 

 surprise) I gained nothing." 



" But," adds Darwin with a little touch of 

 banter, " I know you rank it higher, which is curi- 

 ous, as it did not in the least shake your belief." 

 (III. p. 14 ; see also p. 16, "to me it was an ab- 

 solutely useless book.") 



Unable to find any satisfactory theory of the 

 process of descent with modification in the works 

 of his predecessors, Darwin proceeded to lay the 

 foundations of his own views independently ; and 

 he naturally turned, in the first place, to the only 

 certainly known examples of descent with modifi\ 

 cation, namely, those which are presented by 

 domestic animals and cultivated plants. He 

 devoted himself to the study of these cases with 

 a thoroughness to which none of his predecessors 



