CRUX OF THE EARLY EVOLUTIONISTS. 37 



rather than the name of teleology which has hitherto 

 been insisted upon, even by the greatest writers on 

 evolution — the name having been denied even by those 

 who were most insisting on the thing itself. 



It is easy to understand the difiSculty felt by the 

 fathers of evolution when we remember how much had 

 to be seen before the facts could lie well before them. 

 It was necessary to attain, firstly, to a perception of the 

 unity of person between parents and offspring in succes- 

 sive generations ; secondly, it must be seen that an 

 organism's memory goes back for generations beyond its 

 birth, to the first beginnings in fact, of which we know 

 anything whatever ; thirdly, the latency of that memory, 

 as of memory generally till the associated ideas are 

 reproduced, must be brought to bear upon the facts of 

 heredity ; and lastly, the unconsciousness with which 

 habitual actions come to be performed, must be assigned 

 as the explanation of the unconsciousness with which 

 we grow and discharge most of our natural functions. 



Buffon was too busy with the fact that animals de- 

 scended with modification at all, to go beyond the 

 development and illustration of this great truth. I 

 doubt whether he ever saw more than the first, and 

 that dimly, of the four considerations above stated. 



Dr. Darwin ;was the first to point out the first two 

 considerations with some clearness, but he can hardly 

 be said to have understood their full importance: the 

 two latter ideas do not appear to have occurred to him. 



Lamarck had little if any perception of any one of 

 the four. When, however, they are firmly seized and 

 brought into their due bearings one upon another, 



