800 ANATOMY OF VERTEBRATES. 



attempts to explain the mode of operation of the derivative law- 

 have mainly proved repellent to its study, and have raised the 

 chief obstacles to its acceptance, by affording the most favourable 

 opportunities of telling argument and caustic criticism to oppo- 

 nents of any recognition of such law in the abstract. Thus, 

 De Maillet's conception of the conditions of transmutation 1 in- 

 vited Cuvier's crushing exposition of its absurdity, which fell with 

 the full weight of his great anatomical knowledge. 2 Lamarck 



and comment, and I am very sure he quoted every word he could find to justify them, 

 goes no further than to show that I had anticipated him in the basis of his theory, 

 and in no way or degree supports his assumption that I accepted or had affirmed that I 

 had promulgated (in 1850), the extraordinary superstructure which he has raised upon 

 that basis, under the term * Natural Selection.' In so asserting I should have merely 

 deceived myself : no Naturalist cognisant of the history of the progress of the know- 

 ledge of the origin of species could be deceived for a moment by so gross an absurdity 

 as would have been the statement of the belief, which statement Mr. Darwin 

 endeavours to fasten upon me, of ' having promulgated the theory of " Natural 

 Selection," ' or any other theory of the origin of species. It would have been a case 

 of self-deception akin to that by which Mr. Darwin, having attempted and, as it 

 seems to me, failed, to explain the origin of species on my basis of the ' struggle 

 for life,' assumes to himself, or allows others to attribute to him the only reason- 

 able and probable grounds for belief in the origin of species through a pre- 

 ordained continuously operating secondary law or cause. And here I take leave 

 to remark, that certain facts having been pointed out, with their mode of operating 

 in the origin of species, and the probabilities weighed for and against the mira- 

 culous origin of ' some one form into which life was first breathed ' as contrasted 

 with ' the normal origin of divers forms of sarcodal, single-celled, life ' as hypothe- 

 tical beginners of subsequent and higher forms, it is not honest to confound such 

 'derivative hypothesis of the origin of species' with the hypothesis of 'Natural 

 Selection.' 



1 ' Car il peut arriver, comme nous scavons qu'en effet il arrive assez souvent, que les 

 poissons ail6s et volans chassant ou etant chasses dans la mer, emportes du d£sir de 

 la proie ou de la crainte de la mort, ou bien pousses peut-etre a quelques pas du 

 rivage par les vagues qu'excitait une tempete, soient tomb£s dans des roseaux ou dans 

 des herbages, d'ou ensuite il ne leur fut pas possible de reprendre vers la mer, l'essort 

 qui les en avait tires, et qu'en cet etat ils ayent contracte une plus grande faculte de 

 voler. Alors leurs nageoires n'6tant plus baign^es des eaux de la mer, se fendirent 

 et se dejetterent par la secheresse. Tandis qu'ils trouverent dans les roseaux et les 

 herbages dans lesquels ils 6taient tombed, quelques alimens pour se soutenir, les 

 tuyaux de leurs nageoires separes les uns des autres se prolongerent et se revetirent 

 de barbes ; ou, pour parler plus juste, les membranes qui auparavant les avaient 

 tenus colics les uns aux autres, se metamorphoserent. La barbe formee de ces 

 pellicvdes dejettees s'allongea elle-meme ; la peau de ces animaux se revetit insensible- 

 ment d'un duvet de la meme couleur dont elle etait peinte et ce duvet grandit. Les 

 petits ailerons qu'ils avaient sous le ventre et qui, comme leurs nageoires, leur avaient 

 aide a se promener dans la mer, devinrent des pieds, et leur servirent a marcher sur 

 la terre. II se fit encore d' autres petits changemens dans leur figure. Le bee et le 

 col des uns s'allongerent ; ceux des autres se racourcirent : il en fut de meme du reste 

 du corps. Cependant la conformite de la premiere figure subsiste dans le total ; et 

 elle est et sera toujours aisee a reconnaitre.' Telliamed, t. ii. p. 166 (1755). 



2 ' Des naturalistes, plus materiels dans leur idees, sont demeur^s humbles sectateurs 

 de Maillet. Voyant que le plus ou moins d'usage d'un membre en augmente ou en 

 diminue quelquefois la force et le volume, ils se sont imagine que des habitudes ou 



