ually formed belief that similarity of structure might
imply identity of origin--that, in short, one species of animal might
have developed from another.

Geoffroy's grasp of this idea of transmutation was by no means so
complete as that of Lamarck, and he seems never to have fully determined
in his own mind just what might be the limits of such development of
species. Certainly he nowhere includes all organic creatures in one line
of descent, as Lamarck had done; nevertheless, he held tenaciously to
the truth as he saw it, in open opposition to Cuvier, with whom he held
a memorable debate at the Academy of Sciences in 1830--the debate which
so aroused the interest and enthusiasm of Goethe, but which, in the
opinion of nearly every one else, resulted in crushing defeat for
Geoffrey, and brilliant, seemingly final, victory for the advocate of
special creation and the fixity of species.

With that all ardent controversy over the subject seemed to end, and
for just a quarter of a century to come there was published but a
single argument for transmutation of species which attracted any general
attention whatever. This oasis in a desert generation was a little
book called Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which appeared
anonymously in England in 1844, and which passed through numerous
editions, and was the subject of no end of abusive and derisive comment.
This book, the authorship of which remained for forty years a secret,
is now conceded to have been the work of Robert Chambers, the well-known
English author and publisher. The book itself is remarkable as being an
avowed and unequivocal exposition of a general doctrine of evolution,
its view being as radical and comprehensive as that of Lamarck himself.
But it was a resume of earlier efforts rather than a new departure, to
say nothing of its technical shortcomings, which may best be illustrated
by a quotation.

"The whole question," says Chambers, "stands thus: For the theory of
universal order--that is, order as presiding in both the origin and
administration of the world--we have the testimony of a vast number of
facts in nature, and this one in addition--that whatever is left from
the domain of ignorance, and made undoubted matter of science, forms a
new support to the same doctrine. The opposite view, once predominant,
has been shrinking for ages into lesser space, and now maintains a
footing only in a few departments of nature which happen to be less
li