240 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



work; and even Erasmus Darwin is mentioned — 

 inaccurately — but still he is mentioned. Professor 

 Haeckel says : — 



" Although the theory of development had been 

 already maintained at the beginning of this century 

 by several great naturalists, especially, by Lamarck and 

 Goethe, it only received complete demonstration and 

 causal foundation nine years ago through Darwin's 

 work, and it is on this account that it is now generally 

 (though not altogether rightly) regarded as exclusively 

 Mr. Darwin's theory." * 



Later on, after giving nearly a hundred pages to 

 the works of the early evolutionists — pages that would 

 certainly disquiet the sensitive writer who had cut out 

 the my which disappeared in 1866 — he continued : — 



" We must distinguish clearly (though this is not 

 usually done) between, firstly, the theory of descent as 

 advanced by Lamarck, which deals only with the fact 

 of all animals and plants being descended from a com- 

 mon source, and secondly, Darwin's theory of natural 

 selection, which shows us whi/ this progressive modi- 

 fication of organic forms took place" (p. 93). 



This passage is as inaccurate as most of those by 

 Professor Haeckel that I have had occasion to examine 

 have proved to be. Letting alone that Buffon, not 

 Lamarck, is the foremost name in connection with 

 descent, I have already shown in " Evolution Old and 

 New " that Lamarck goes exhaustively into the how 

 and why of modification. He alleges the conservation, 

 or preservation, in the ordinary course of nature, ot 



* Natiirliche Schbpfungsgesohichte, p. 3. Berlin, 1S68. 



