1881. ] Recent Literature. 551 
it must first be acted upon by a change in its surroundings, and 
the change must then be transmitted to its descendants. This is 
(1) modern Lamarckianism. Then, when the organism or set of 
organic forms are really in a stage of inequilibrium or of change, 
the principle or forces of (2) natural selection, or Darwinism, come 
in, eliminating the useless and preserving the useful forms. Thus 
marckianism, in its modern shape, forms the base of the pyramid 
of evolution and Darwinism the apex. Lamarck and his follow- 
ers (whether conscious of their intellectual descent from the 
learned and philosophic Frenchman or not) are endeavoring tolay 
the foundation. Meanwhile, Darwin and his English and German 
colaborers have began at the top and worked downward. While 
Professor Semper does not mention Lamarck, his entire line of 
thought is that of a modern Lamarckian, or what Lamarck would 
probably have been had he lived in the present half century. 
The work before us is not metaphysical, as is Darwinism. The 
term “ natural selection ” is seldom, if ever, completely personified 
as an efficient cause or active law, but we are, on the contrary, 
treated to the results, so manifold, of the effects upon animals of 
changed conditions of life by changes wrought artificially or in the 
laboratory of nature. The author, instead of taking up example after 
example, as do Darwin and especially his followers,and endeavoring 
to explain their variation by hypothesis piled on hypothesis, like 
the pile of metaphysical truths of old-school metaphysicians, which 
may be deftly demolished by removing the premise or undermost 
tick—the author, we say, works on the inductive method, and 
‘endeavors at least to plant his first brick on a substratum of facts 
tested by experiment. As Semper remarks at the end of his book, 
“ No power which is able to act’ only as a selective and not as a 
direct 
It was not until the change had actually taken place that selection 
cee habit of theoretical explanations from general proposi- 
ions, 
tions which Darwin has opened out to us by his theory may beé 
genet the prospect of gradually bringing even Organic Being 
in 
chanical efficient cause.” 
