184 Unconscious Memory 



time after Mr. Wallace had written — he wrote as 

 follows : — 



" 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 know- 

 ledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at 

 secondhand bad caricatures of his teaching. 



" When will the time come when we may see Lamarck's 

 theory discussed — and, I may as well at once say, refuted 

 in some important points i— 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 natu- 

 ralists 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." ^ 



In 1873 M. Martin published his edition of Lamarck's 

 " Philosophie Zoologique." He was still able to say, with, 

 I believe, perfect truth, that Lamarck's theory has " never 

 yet had the honour of being discussed seriously." ^ 



Professor Huxley in his article on Evolution is no less 

 cavalier than Mr. Wallace. He writes : — * 



" Lamarck introduced the conception of the action of an 

 animal on itself as a factor in producing modification." 



[Lamarck did nothing of the kind. It was Buffon and 

 Dr. Darwin who introduced this, but more especially Dr. 

 Darwin.] 



"But a little consideration showed" (italics mine) "that 

 though Lamarck had seized what, as far as it goes, is a true 

 cause of modification, it is a cause the actual effects of which 

 are wholly inadequate to account for any considerable modifi- 

 cation in animals, and which can have no influence what- 

 ever in the vegetable world, &c." 



• I never could find what these particular points were. 



2 Isidore Geoffroy, Hist. Nat. Gen., torn. ii. p. 407, 1859. 

 ^ M. Martin's edition of the "Philosophie Zoologique" (Paris, 

 1873), Introduction, p. vi. 



* Encyclopaedia Britannica, gthed., p. 750. 



