212 Luck, or Cunning ? 
cannot rightly say that evolution had only existed before 
Mr. Darwin’s time in ‘‘ a shadowy, undeveloped state,” or 
as “a mere plausible and happy guess.”’ It existed in the 
same form as that in which most people accept it now, and 
had been carried to its extreme development, before Mr. 
Darwin’s father had been born. It is idle to talk of 
Buffon’s work as “a mere plausible and happy guess,” 
or to imply that the first volume of the “ Philosophie 
Zoologique ”’ of Lamarck was a less full and sufficient 
demonstration of descent with modification than the 
“Origin of Species” is. It has its defects, shortcomings, 
and mistakes, but it is an incomparably sounder work 
than the ‘‘ Origin of Species ;”’ and though it contains the 
deplorable omission of any reference to Buffon, Lamarck 
does not first grossly misrepresent Buffon, and then tell 
him to go away, as Mr. Darwin did to the author of the 
“ Vestiges ’’ and to Lamarck. If Mr. Darwin was believed 
and honoured for saying much the same as Lamarck had 
said, it was because Lamarck had borne the brunt of the 
laughing. The “ Origin of Species ’’ was possible because 
the “ Vestiges ’ had prepared the way for it. The “‘ Ves- 
tiges ’’ were made possible by Lamarck and Erasmus 
Darwin, and these two were made possible by Buffon. 
Here a somewhat sharper line can be drawn than is usually 
found possible when defining the ground covered by phil- 
osophers. No one broke the ground for Buffon to anything 
like the extent that he broke it for those who followed him, 
and these broke it for one another. 
Mr. Allen says (p. 11) that, “in Charles Darwin’s own 
words, Lamarck ‘ first did the eminent service of arousing 
attention to the probability of all change in the organic as 
well as in the inorganic world being the result of law, and 
not of miraculous interposition.’ ’’ Mr. Darwin did indeed 
use these words, but Mr. Allen omits the pertinent fact that 
he did not use them till six thousand copies of his work had 
been issued, and an impression been made as to its scope 
