Professor Lankester and Lamarck a2 
Professor Ray Lankester, again, should not say that 
Lamarck’s doctrine has been “ so often tried and rejected.” 
M. Martins, in his edition of the “‘ Philosophie Zoologique,’’* 
said truly that Lamarck’s theory had never yet had the 
honour of being seriously discussed. It never has—not at 
least in connection with the name of its propounder. To 
mention Lamarck’s name in the presence of the conven- 
tional English society naturalist has always been like 
‘Shaking a red rag at a cow ; he is at once infuriated ; “as 
if it were possible,” to quote from Isidore Geoffroy St. 
Hilaire, whose defence of Lamarck is one of the best things 
in his book,t “ that so great labour on the part of so great 
a naturalist should have led him to ‘ a fantastic 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 well at once say refuted, in 
some important points, 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 
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 
* Paris, 1873, Introd., p. vi. 
{ ‘Hist. Nat. Gen.,’’ ii. 404, 1859. 
