716 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 123. 



Forms,'* in wMch he set forth in a most 

 interesting way a complete system of the 

 modes and causes of evolution under the 

 five laws of : (1) Acceleration and Eetarda- 

 tion ; (2) Eepetitive Addition ; (3) Use and 

 Effort ; (4) Bathism or Growth Force ; (5) 

 Intelligent Selection. This system was 

 largely original with him, because he had 

 not as yet studied Lamarck's writings, 

 knowing them only through abstracts ; it 

 cannot be said, however, that he ever either 

 advanced beyond or substantially modified 

 the theoretical position he reached at the 

 age of 31. Later, as he carefully studied 

 the writings of the great French naturalist, 

 he fully recognized Lamarck's priority and 

 accepted the Neo-Lamarckian title when it 

 was applied to him during the Weismann 

 controversy. Cope, Hyatt, Eyder and 

 Packard became the pioneers of the school 

 in America. It is not necessary here to 

 detail "his widely known arguments as 

 champion of this philosophy, which he gath- 

 ered from his rich stores of comparative 

 anatomy and paleontology and put forth 

 in numerous essays and public discussions, 

 concluding with his final argument before 

 the recent meeting of the American Society 

 of Naturalists, in Boston. f Suffice it to say 

 that he showed much of the same kind of 

 confident strength and of the same logical 

 weakness which characterized Lamarck. 

 The latter, in fact, among all naturalist 

 philosophers is Cope's nearest prototype. 

 The papers upon the ' Origin of Intelli- 

 gence ' (1872), 'Consciousness in Evolu- 

 tion' (1874), 'The Origin of the Will' 

 (1877), ' On Archajsthetism ' (1882), follow 

 a line of thought largely foreshadowed by 

 Lamarck, but none the less striking. Cope 

 was nothing daunted by Weismann 's chal- 

 lenge and vigorous attack upon the trans- 

 mission theory, and maintained to the end 



*American Philosophical Society, December 15, 

 1871. 



t Reported in Science, April 23, 1897. 



that the paleontological evidence was too 

 strong to be refuted. His first collected 

 essays, ' The Origin of the Fittest,'* ante- 

 dated this discussion, but his second col- 

 lection, ' The Primary Factors of Organic 

 Evolution, 'f enters into it very fully and 

 with as much force of reason as the facts 

 afibrd at present. This volume goes over 

 some familiar territory, yet is striking be- 

 cause of the very wide range of fresh read- 

 ing and research it gives evidence of. The 

 concluding chapter contains (p. 508) his 

 final statement of what may be called his 

 fundamental causal principle — namely, the 

 formative or creative r61e of consciousness 

 from the dawn of life. 



Side by side with these studies of the fac- 

 tors of evolution are numerous essays upon 

 the history of man, J beginning in 1875, 

 and upon the evolution of the yertebrata, 

 progressive and retrogressive, which are 

 full of speculative phylogeny. In formu- 

 lating descent trees Cope has been second 

 only to Haeckel. He let no opportunity 

 slip by of at least throwing out an hypothe- 

 sis as to the phyletic relations of every 

 great type he studied, and many of these 

 random guesses have been confirmed. 



More remote from the main trend of his 

 profession were his collateral intellectual 

 pursuits, each of which seemed to issue from 

 a clearly defined alcove of his brain upon 

 consecutive occasions and express his ever 

 widening and deepening philosophy. His 

 progressive thought upon metaphysical 

 problems can be followed in ' The Origin of 

 the Will ' (1877), ' Theology of Evolution' 

 (1877), 'The Eelation of Mind to Matter' 

 (1877), 'Ethical Evolution' (1889),' An 

 Outline of the Philosophy of Evolution ' 

 (1889), 'The Evolution of Mind' (1890), 

 ' The Foundations of Theism ' (1893). 



* D. Appleton & Co., 1897, 8vo., 467 pp. 



fOpen Court Publishing Co., 1896, 547 pp. 



t Among others see ' IThe Genealogy of Man,' 

 American Naturalist, 1893 ; ' Lenurine Eeversion in 

 Human Dentition, ' Journal of Morphology. 



