ient Rome, and all these
figures, one with another, have a perfect resemblance to their intended
objects, such as they still are to-day.

"From all these established facts, there does not seem to be the
smallest foundation for supposing that the new genera which I have
discovered or established among extraneous fossils, such as the
paleoetherium, anoplotherium, megalonyx, mastodon, pterodactylis, etc.,
have ever been the sources of any of our present animals, which only
differ so far as they are influenced by time or climate. Even if it
should prove true, which I am far from believing to be the case, that
the fossil elephants, rhinoceroses, elks, and bears do not differ
further from the existing species of the same genera than the present
races of dogs differ among themselves, this would by no means be a
sufficient reason to conclude that they were of the same species; since
the races or varieties of dogs have been influenced by the trammels
of domesticity, which those other animals never did, and indeed never
could, experience."(3)

To Cuvier's argument from the fixity of Egyptian mummified birds and
animals, as above stated, Lamarck replied that this proved nothing
except that the ibis had become perfectly adapted to its Egyptian
surroundings in an early day, historically speaking, and that the
climatic and other conditions of the Nile Valley had not since then
changed. His theory, he alleged, provided for the stability of species
under fixed conditions quite as well as for transmutation under varying
conditions.

But, needless to say, the popular verdict lay with Cuvier; talent won
for the time against genius, and Lamarck was looked upon as an impious
visionary. His faith never wavered, however. He believed that he had
gained a true insight into the processes of animate nature, and
he reiterated his hypotheses over and over, particularly in the
introduction to his Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertebres, in
1815, and in his Systeme des Connaissances Positives de l'Homme, in
1820. He lived on till 1829, respected as a naturalist, but almost
unrecognized as a prophet.

TENTATIVE ADVANCES

While the names of Darwin and Goethe, and in particular that of Lamarck,
must always stand out in high relief in this generation as the exponents
of the idea of transmutation of species, there are a few others which
must not be altogether overlooked in this connection. Of these the
most conspicuous is that of Gottfrie