AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 



OF THE PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, 



FRETIOUSLY TO THE PUBLICATION OP THE FIRST EDITION 

 OF THIS WORK. 



I will here a give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the 

 Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists 

 believed that species were immutable productions, and had been 

 separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many 

 authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed 

 that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of 

 life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. 

 Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical writers,* the first 

 author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was 

 Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, 

 and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transforma- 

 tion of species, I need not here enter on details. 



Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject 

 excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first pub- 

 lished his views in 1801 ; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his 

 ' Philosophie Zoologique,' and subsequently, in 1815, in the Intro- 

 duction to his ' Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertebres.' In these 



* Aristotle, in his ' Physical Auscultatories ' (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after 

 remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any 

 more than it falls to spoil the farmer's corn when threshed out of doors, 

 applies the same argument to organisation; and adds (as translated by 

 Mr. Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), " So what hinders 

 the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation 

 in nature ? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones 

 ciiarp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for mas- 

 ticating the food ; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it 

 was the result of accident. And in like manner as to the other parts in 

 which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, there- 

 fore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like 

 as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, 

 having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity; and 

 whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished, and still perish." 

 We here see the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how 

 little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks 

 on the formation of the teeth. 



