HISTORICAL SKETCH. XV 



branches of trees. But he likewise believed in a law of 

 progressive development; and as all the forms of life 

 thus tend to progress, in order to account for the ex- 

 istence at the present day of simple productions, he 

 maintains that such forms are now spontaneously gen- 

 erated* 



Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, as is stated in his ' Life,' 

 written by his son, suspected, as early as 1795, that 

 what we call species are various degenerations of the 

 same type. It was not until 1838 that he published 

 his conviction that the same forms have not been per- 

 petuated since the origin of all things. Geoffroy seems 

 to have relied chiefly on the conditions of life, or the 

 " monde ambiant " as the cause of change. He was 

 cautious in drawing conclusions, and did not believe 

 that existing species are now undergoing modification; 

 and, as his son adds, " C'est done un probleme k rfeerver 

 entierement a I'avenir, suppose meme que I'avenir doive 

 avoir prise sur lui." 



In 1813, Dr. W. C. Wells read before the Royal 



* I have taken the date of the first publication of Lamarck from 

 Isld. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's ('Hist. Nat. Gfofirale,' tom. ii. p. 

 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion on this subject. In this 

 work a full account is given of BufEon's conclusions on the same 

 subject. It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus 

 Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion''of 

 Lamarck in his 'Zoonomia' (vol. i. pp. 500-510), published in 

 1794. According to Isid. Geoffroy there is no doublf that Goethe 

 was an extreme partisan of similar views, as shown in the Intro- 

 duction to a work written in 1794 and 1795, but not published till 

 long afterwards : he has pointedly remarked (' Goethe als Natur- 

 forscher,' von Dr. Karl Meding, s. 34) that the future question for 

 naturalists will be how, for instance, cattle got their horns, and not 

 for what they are used. It is rather a singular instance of the 

 manner in which similar views arise at about the same time, that 

 Goethe in Germany, Dr. Darwin in England, and Geoffroy Saint- 

 Hilaire (as we shall immediately see) in France, came to the same 

 conclusion on the origin of snecies, in the years 1794^5. 



