PROFESSOR LANKBSTBR AND LAMARCK. 277 



conclusion ' only — to ' a flighty error,' and, as has 

 been often said, though not written, to ' one 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 

 Lamarck's theory discussed, and I may as weU at once 

 say refuted, in some important points, with at anyrate 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, at any rate, not be before he has been heard." 



Lamarck was the Lazarus of biology. I wish his 

 more fortunate brethren, instead of intoning the old 

 Church argument that he has " been refuted over and 

 over again," would refer us to some of the best chapters 

 in the writers who have refuted him. My own read- 

 ing has led me to become moderately well acquainted 

 with the literature of evolution, but I have never come 

 across a single attempt fairly to grapple with Lamarck, 

 and it is plain that neither Isidore Geoffrey nor M. 

 Martins know of such an attempt any more than I do. 

 When Professor Kay Lankester puts his finger on 



