206 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE. 



tries. Bory thus introduces a new idea in the 

 influence exercised on the fixation of specific char- 

 acters by the action of a long series of ancestors 

 placed under constant conditions. According to 

 him, this, so to speak, is habit exercising its powers, 

 not only on individuals, but even on species. But 

 in this conception, without being apparently aware 

 of it, he places himself in formal contradiction to 

 the master of whom he proclaims himself a disci- 

 ple. We have seen, in fact, that in the opinion of 

 Lamarck, all organized forms were being constantly 

 modified according to new needs, and it follows 

 that each generation was separated more and more 

 from its ancestors. While with Bory heredity would 

 have, as its result, the fixation of characters, with 

 Lamarck it is constantly causing them to vary, 

 by accumulating the little differences acquired in 

 each generation. In this point of view, Bory must 

 be regarded as an aberrant disciple of Lamarck. 

 The idea of Bory, of the fixation of characters by 

 heredity, was subsequently taken up and enlarged 

 by his countryman, Naudin. 



Isidore St. Hilaire (1805-1861) serves us as a 

 mirror of the further recession of opinion from 

 transformism in France. The tide of hostile influ- 

 ence had set too strongly against the doctrine ; and 

 we find the son taking a still more conservative 

 position than his father, whom, nevertheless, he 

 loyally defended. 



He advanced a theory of ' the limited variability 



