116 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
developed ; in front, the arms and hands, for the purpose of 
seizing objects. The upright walk was then followed by a 
freer view over the surrounding objects, and led consequently 
to an important progress in mental development. Human 
apes thereby soon gained a great advantage over the other 
apes, and further, over surrounding organisms in general. 
In order to maintain the supremacy over them, they 
formed themselves into companies, and there arose, as in the 
case of all animals living in company, the desire of com- 
municating to one another their desires and thoughts. Thus 
arose the necessity of language, which, consisting at first of 
rough and disjointed sounds, soon became more connected, 
developed, and articulate. The development of articulate 
speech now in turn became the strongest lever for a further 
progressive development of the organism, and above all, of 
the brain, and so ape-like men became gradually and slowly 
transformed into real men. In this way the actual descent of 
the lowest and rudest primitive men from the most highly 
developed apes was distinctly maintained by Lamarck, and 
supported by a series of the most important proofs. 
The honour of being the chief French nature-philosopher is 
not usually assigned to Lamarck, but to Etienne Geoffroy St. 
Hilaire (the elder), born in 1771, the same in whom Goethe 
was especially interested, and with whom we have already 
become acquainted as Cuvier’s most prominent opponent. 
He developed his ideas about the transformation of organic 
species as far back as the end of the last century, but 
published them only in the year 1828, and then in the fol- 
lowing years, especially in 1830, defended them bravely 
against Cuvier. Geoffroy St. Hilaire in all essentials 
adopted Lamarck’s Theory of Descent, yet he believed that 
