246 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



absurdity the more.' Such was the language which 

 Lamarck heard during his protracted old age, saddened 

 alike by the weight of years and blindness ; this was 

 what people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet 

 barely closed, and what, indeed, they are still saying — 

 commonly, too, without any knowledge of what Lamarck 

 maintained, but merely repeating at second hand bad 

 caricatures of his teaching. 



" When will the time come when we may see La- 

 mark's theory discussed — and, I may as well at once say, 

 refuted in some important points — with at any rate the 

 respect due to one of the most illustrious masters of our 

 science ? And when will this theory, the hardihood of 

 which has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from 

 the interpretations and commentaries by the false light 

 of which so many naturalists have formed their opinion 

 concerning it ? If its author is to be condemned, let it 

 be, at any rate, not before he has been heard." * 



It is not necessary for me to give the extracts from 

 Lamarck which M. Isidore Geoifroy St. Hilaire quotes 

 in order to show what he really maintained, inasmuch 

 as they will be given at greater length in the following 

 chapter ; but I may perhaps say that I have not found 

 M. Geoffrey refuting Lamarck in any essential point. 



Professor Haeckel says that to Lamarck " will always 

 belong the immortal glory of having for the first time 

 worked out the theory of descent as an independent 

 scientific thedry of the first order, and as the philoso- 

 phical foundation of the whole science of Biology." 

 • **««» 



• ' Hist. Nat, Gen.,' torn. ii. p. 407. 



