230 Luck, or Cunning ? 
agencies as those arbitrarily asserted to exist by Professor 
Semper and Mr. George Henslow were the only means sug- 
gested by its advocates.” 
Undoubtedly the theory of descent with modification, 
which received its first sufficiently ample and undisguised 
exposition in 1809 with the ‘“ Philosophie Zoologique ” 
of Lamarck, shared the common fate of all theories that 
revolutionise opinion on important matters, and was 
fiercely opposed by the Huxleys, Romaneses, Grant Allens, 
and Ray Lankesters of its time. It had to face the reaction 
in favour of the Church which began in the days of the 
First Empire, as a natural consequence of the horrors of 
the Revolution ; it had to face the social influence and then 
almost Darwinian reputation of Cuvier, whom Lamarck 
could not, or would not, square ; it was put forward by one 
who was old, poor, and ere long blind. What theory could 
.do more than just keep itself alive under conditions so 
unfavourable 2? Even under the most favourable condi- 
tions descent with modification would have been a hard 
plant to rear, but, as things were, the wonder is that it 
was. not killed outright at once. We all know how large a 
share social influences have in deciding what kind of recep- 
tion a book or theory is to meet with ; true, these influences 
are not permanent, but at first they are almost irresistible ; 
in reality it was not the theory of descent that was matched 
against that of fixity, but Lamarck against Cuvier ; who 
can be surprised that Cuvier for a time should have had the 
best of it ? 
And yet it is pleasant to reflect that his triumph. was not, 
as triumphs go, long lived. How is Cuvier best known now ? 
As one who missed a great opportunity ; as one who was 
great in small things, and stubbornly small in great ones. 
Lamarck died in 1831 ; in 1861 descent with modification 
was almost universally accepted by those most competent 
to form an opinion. This result was by no means so exclu 
sively due to Mr. Darwin’s “ Origin of Species”’ as is 
