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ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
still essential “to drive the fact of evolution into people’s heads” leaving the 
exposition of its cause, or modus operandi, to come later. 
But English men of science were not alone in their reluctance to adopt 
the evolution theory. As Huxley said, “Germany took time to consider.” 
Bronn produced a poor translation of “The Origin” in I860, but omitted 
from it, out of deference to popular opinion, numerous supposedly offen¬ 
sive passages (as, for example, the sentence near the end concerning 
the light likely to be thrown upon the origin of man) and added a critical 
appendix intended to expose Darwin’s weak points and to soften the effect 
of some of his scientific heresies. Although Ernst Krause attributes con¬ 
siderable influence to Hackel’s-advocacy of evolution in his “Radiolaria” 
published in 1862, he says it was really in 1863, when Hiickel championed 
the cause at the “Versammlung” of naturalists at Stettin, that the Dar¬ 
winian question could be considered as having been placed “for the first 
time publicly before the forum of German science.” In France, accord¬ 
ing to Huxley, the ill-will of powerful members of the Institute “produced 
for a long time the effect of a conspiracy of silence,” and it was only 
in 1869 that Hooker was able to say, “the evolution of species must at last 
be spreading in France.” Looking at the whole situation a year after the 
publication of “The Origin,” Huxley says that the supporters of Mr. Dar¬ 
win’s views were numerically extremely insignificant and that “there is not 
the slightest doubt that, if a general council of the Church scientific had 
been held at that time, we should have been condemned by an overwhelming 
majority.” 1 In this connection it needs to be remembered that it was not 
simply the concept of natural selection or any other peculiarly Darwinian 
idea against which the vote of the overwhelming majority would have been 
cast, but that it was the general subject of transmutation and adaptive 
development towards which nearly the whole world was unreceptive and 
unfriendly. Now, if this is a true statement of the case, how can it be said 
that Lamarck had founded the theory of evolution ? Even if Lamarck and 
Darwin had held exactly the same beliefs, there would be no more reason 
for asserting that Lamarck had set those beliefs upon a sure foundation 
than for saying that Wells or Matthew or Wallace had established the doc¬ 
trine of natural selection before its exposition by Darwin. 
That Lamarck had made an earnest and creditable attempt to provide the 
development hypothesis with a sound basis is not to be denied, and we 
may willingly concede that his effort was properly directed towards the 
establishment of a reasonable explanation of variation, but it is beyond 
question that Lamarck did not succeed in convincing his contemporaries 
1 “On the Reception of the ‘Origin of Species,’” in “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,” 
Vol. II, p. 186. 1887. 
