haeckel's anthropogenis. 235 



Before his time, Jliowever, the theory of evolution had been arrived 

 at by several men, many of them independently — Lamarck, St. Hilaire^ 

 Blainville, Treviranus, Oken, Goethe. 



Lamarck was sixty-five years of age when the "Philosophie Zoolo- 

 gique " appeared in 1809. In it he formulated the theory of descent, 

 and asserted its extreme consequences, the development of organic from 

 inorganic matter, and the development of man from the ape. In 

 explaining the latter he shows that he well knew the principles of 

 heredity and adaptation, and the development of species by the 

 cumulative effect of heredity. Partly the fact that he failed to dis- 

 cover the principle of natural selection brought about by the struggle 

 for life, partly the incomplete state of all biological knowledge, pre- 

 vented him from putting his theory on a still firmer basis. 



There are many points in Goethe's morphology (to which science 

 he made so many important contributions) which point to a belief in 

 evolution, although he gives no connected exposition of his views on 

 the subject. The use of the terms centrifugal and centripetal force 

 esfjecially indicate his appreciation of the importance of heredity and 

 adaptation. 



It is impossible to point out a book which has opened up the way 

 to more research than Darwin's "Origin of Species by Means of 

 Natural Selection," which appeared in 18-59. The advantages which 

 he had for the preparation of such a book were threefold : 1 st. The 

 enormous strides made by biology in the preceding fifty years. 2nd. 

 The opportunities for observation afibrded him by his five years' 

 voyage. round the world. 3rd. The time which his circumstances 

 allowed him to spend on the systematic study of domestic plants and 

 animals. The clue to the " struggle for existence " he obtained from 

 reading Malthus' work on " Population." The same solution of the 

 problem, was indicated by others about the same time, notably by 

 Wallace, 1855-58. 



Several years passed before botanists and zoologists began rightly 

 to appreciate the book, and it is only within the last few years that 

 its efiect has been felt on the sciences of anatomy and embryology. 



It was not until 1871 that Darwin insisted on the applicability of 

 his theory to man, but this had been done in the meantime by 

 Huxley (1863), and shortly afterwards by Yogt and Rolle. Haeckel 

 was the first (1866) to attempt to establish a genealogical system, the 

 natural consequence of the theory. 



