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to account for the existence at the present day of simple productions, he
maintains that such forms are now spontaneously generated. (I have taken
the date of the first publication of Lamarck from Isidore Geoffroy Saint-
Hilaire's ("Hist. Nat. Generale", tom. ii. page 405, 1859) excellent
history of opinion on this subject. In this work a full account is given
of Buffon'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. pages 500-510),
published in 1794. According to Isid. Geoffroy there is no doubt that
Goethe was an extreme partisan of similar views, as shown in the
introduction to a work written in 1794 and 1795, but not published till
long afterward; he has pointedly remarked ("Goethe als Naturforscher", 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 species, in the years 1794-5.)
Geoffroy 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 1828 that he published
his conviction that the same forms have not been perpetuated 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 donc un
probleme a reserver entierement a l'avenir, suppose meme que l'avenir doive
avoir prise sur lui."
In 1813 Dr. W.C. Wells read before the Royal Society "An Account of a White
Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro"; but his paper was
not published until his famous "Two Essays upon Dew and Single Vision"
appeared in 1818. In this paper he distinctly recognises the principle of
natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been
indicated; but he applies it only to the races of man, and to certain
characters alone. After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an
immunity from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all
animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists
improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but
what is done in this latter case "by art, seems to be done with equal
efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of
mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental
varieties of man, which would occur among the first few and scattered
inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be better
fitted than others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would
consequently multiply, while the others would decrease; not only from their
in ability to sustain the attacks of disease, but from their incapacity of
contending with their more vigorous neighbours. The colour of this
vigorous race I take for granted, from what has been already said, would be
dark. But the same disposition to form varieties still existing, a darker
and a darker race would in the course of time occur: and as the darkest
would be the best fitted for the climate, this would at length become the
most prevalent, if not the only race, in the particular country in which it
had originated." He then extends these same views to the white inhabitants
of colder climates. I am indebted to Mr. Rowley, of the United States, for
having called my attention, through Mr. Brace, to the above passage of Dr.
Wells' work.
The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, afterward Dean of Manchester, in the fourth
volume of the "Horticultural Transactions", 1822, and in his work on the
"Amaryllidaceae" (1837, pages 19, 339), declares that "horticultural
experiments have established, beyond the possibility of refutation, that
botanical species are only a higher and more permanent class of varieties."
He extends the same view to animals. The dean believes that single species
of each genus were created in an originally highly plastic condition, and
that these have produced, chiefly by inter-crossing, but likewise by
variation, all our existing species.
In 1826 Professor Grant, in the concluding paragraph in his well-known
paper ("Edinburgh Philosophical Journal", vol. XIV, page 283) on the
Spongilla, clearly declares his belief that species are descended from
other species, and that they become improved in the course of modification.
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