4 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



a letter^ written to Huxley, probably in 1859, 



and published since the appearance of Professor 



Osborn's book, indicates that Charles Darwin 



suspected the French naturalist of borrowing 



from his grandfather : — 



' The history of error is quite unimportant, but it is curious 

 to observe how exactly and accurately my grandfather (in 

 Zoonomia, vol. i,, p. 504, 1 794) gives Lamarck's theory. I 

 will quote one sentence. Speaking of birds' beaks, he says : 

 "AU which seem to have been gradually produced during 

 many generations by the perpetual endeavour of the creatures 

 to supply the want of food, and to have been delivered to 

 their posterity with constant improvement of them for the 

 purposes required." Lamarck published Hist. Zoolog. in 1 809. 

 The Zoonomia was translated into many languages.' 



A careful comparison of the French transla- 

 tion of the Zoonomia with Lamarck's PhilosopMe 

 Zoologiqm and with a preliminary statement of 

 his views published in 1802, would probably 

 decide this interesting question. 



THE INFLUENCE OF LYELL UPON CHARLES 

 DARWIN 



The hmits of space compel me to pass by the 

 youth of Charles Darwin, with the influence of 

 school, Edinburgh and Cambridge, including his 

 intimacy with Henslow — a friendship leading to 

 the voyage in the Beagk. We must also pass 

 by his earliest convictions on evolution, the 



' acquired ' in the sense of ' acquired characters ' ; • changement 

 acquis ' is the form employed many years later by Lamarck. 



* More Letters of Charles Darwin. Edited by Francis Darwin and 

 A. C. Seward, London, 1903, i. 125. Hereafter quoted as More 

 Letters, 



