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ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
therefore, with surprise and regret that I observed upon the pedestal of 
Lamarck’s statue an inscription describing him as the founder of the theory 
of evolution. Instantly I registered a mental protest and, ever since, I have 
wished for the opportunity to give my protest oral expression, which I must 
now do. 
To my mind, a person can be said to have founded something only when 
he has either originated it or, finding it already existing in a state of instabil¬ 
ity, has supplied it with the immovable basis which it lacked. Now, it is 
not claimed, I believe, by any one that Lamarck first conceived and pro¬ 
pounded the general theory of evolution. On the contrary, it is well under¬ 
stood that the idea of derivation and progressive development has been 
set forth, more or less explicitly, by numerous philosophers from at least the 
early days of Greek literature down to Lamarck’s own time and that even 
the form of the doctrine which he himself expounded was in its essential 
substance advocated by his immediate predecessors, Buffon and Erasmus 
Darwin. Those, therefore, who look upon Lamarck as “the founder of 
the evolution theory” must believe, not only that he first placed under the 
ancient conception of derivation a solid groundwork of irrefragable argu¬ 
ment or proof, but that he also gained for it some considerable degree of 
acceptance by those best able to pass upon its claims. But this he did not do. 
Whatever we may now think of the value and validity of the Lamarckian 
factors of evolution, we must admit that during his lifetime and for not less 
than thirty years after his death Lamarck’s philosophical views attracted 
little attention and made no great impression upon the learned world. 
I cannot think of a single eminent man of science who championed Lamarck’s 
particular theory of variation until after Darwin had given new life to the 
whole subject of evolution, unless we are to admit that Herbert Spencer’s 
views, expressed in 1852 in his “Essay on the Development Hypothesis”, 
were an echo from Lamarck’s writings, which I think is very doubtful. 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire and a few others, it is true, mildly pronounced in favor 
of the mutability of species though not attributing it distinctly to the causes 
assigned by Lamarck, but it is safe to say that during the first half of the 
nineteenth century the dogma of special creation was as firmly intrenched 
and as generally accepted as if Lamarck had never lived. Even when 
Lyell and Hooker presented the joint paper of Darwin and Wallace to the 
Linnsean Society, on the first of July, 1858, the matter practically fell flat. 
Lyell himself was not convinced of the mutability of species until years 
afterwards, and it was only when “The Origin” appeared, in November, 
1859, that the world awaked to a realization of the fact that the evolution 
theory had to be reckoned with; and the scientific part of the world aroused 
itself no more quickly than the rest. August Weismann says, “We who 
