INTRODUCTION 



21 



Lamarck (Fig. 11), 1744r-1829, was the first to bring forward a theory 

 of evolution that has retained a considerable following to the present 

 time. Lamarck, like most of his contemporaries and predecessors, at 

 first adopted the view that species were fixed and unchanging; but about 

 1800 his views changed. His theory is best explained in his Philoso- 

 phie Zoologique, published in 1809. Its two principal tenets were that 

 the effects of use and disuse upon the parts of animals are transmitted 

 to their offspring, and that the environment may produce changes in 

 animals which are inherited by their progenJ^ Both of these views 

 regarding the cause of evolution have been largely abandoned by the 

 pure biologists, but are still held by some paleontologists, by numerous 

 medical men, and by the laity. 



Fig. 12. — Charles Darwin, 1809-1882. (From University Magazine. 



Darwin.) 



Photo by Leonard 



Lamarck's views were championed by the able naturalist Geoffroy- 

 Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844). Cuvier, on the contrary, not only op- 

 posed the Lamarckian views of the cause of change, but ridiculed the 

 idea of evolution itself. The attitude of the latter scholar is one of the in- 

 congruities of biological history, since Cuvier's own discoveries in the 

 field of comparative anatomy constitute one of the best arguments in 

 favor of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, Cuvier adhered to the 

 fixity of species, and in a famous debate in the French Academj^ of 

 Science between Cuvier and Geoff roy-Saint-Hilaire, in 1830, the former 

 was held to have won. Cuvier was in high esteem in government and 

 social circles, and had a large following among the young men. As a 

 result the rise of evolutionary thought was retarded for several decades. 



