64 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



lie developed it with greater fulness of detail than 

 Dr, Darwin had done, but perhaps with a somewhat 

 less nice sense of some important points. Till his 

 death, in 1831, Lamarck, as far as age and blindness 

 would permit, continued to devote himself to the ex- 

 position of the theory of descent with modification. 



IV. A more distinct perception of the unity of parents 

 and offspring, with a bolder reference of the fact^ of 

 heredity (whether of structure or instinct), to memory 

 pure and simple ; a clearer perception of the conse- 

 quences that follow from the survival of the fittest, and 

 a just view of the relation in which those consequences 

 stand to " the circumstance-suiting " power of animals 

 and plants ; a reference of the variations whose accu- 

 mulation results in species, to the volition of the animal 

 or plant which varies, and perhaps a dawning percep- 

 tion that all adaptations of structure to need must 

 therefore be considered as " purposive." 



This must be connected with Mr. Matthew's work on 

 ' Naval Timber and Arboriculture,' which appeared in 

 1831. The remarks which it contains in reference 

 to evolution are confined to an appendix, but when 

 brought together, as by Mr. Matthew himself, in the 

 ' Gardeners' Chronicle ' for April 7, 1860, they form 

 one of the most perfect yet succinct expositions of the 

 theory of evolution that I have ever seen. I shall 

 therefore give them in full.* This book was well 

 received, and was reviewed in the • Quarterly Keview,'t 

 but seems to have been valued rather for its views on 

 naval timber than on evolution. Mr. Matthew's merit 

 • See ch. xviii. of this volume. f Vol. xlix. p. 125. 



