and I will
try before six months are over to convert the readers of the
_Quarterly_ to that heterodox opinion[87].'

Lyell was at that time at work on his review for the _Quarterly_ of
Scrope's _Central France_, and was also completing the 'first sketch'
of the _Principles_. But it is evident that as the result of continued
study of Lamarck's book, Lyell found it, in spite of its fascination, to
embody a theory which he could not but regard as unsound and not
calculated to prove a solution of the great mystery of evolution.
Accordingly when the second volume of the _Principles_ was issued in
1832, it was found to contain in its opening chapters a very trenchant
criticism of Lamarck's theory.

It is only fair to remember, however, that in 1863, after Lyell had
accepted the theory of Natural Selection he wrote to Darwin:

'When I came to the conclusion that after all Lamarck was going
to be shown to be right, and that we must "go the whole orang" I
re-read his book, and remembering when it was written, I felt I
had done him injustice[88].'

It is interesting also to notice that Darwin, like Lyell, gradually came
to entertain a higher opinion of the merit of Lamarck's works, than he
did on his first perusal of them. In 1844, Darwin wrote to Hooker,
'Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense!' and in the same year he
speaks of Lamarck's book as 'veritable rubbish,' an 'absurd though
clever work[89].' When, after the publication of the _Origin of
Species_, Lyell referred to the _conclusions_ arrived at in that work as
similar to those of Lamarck, Darwin expressed something like
indignation, and he wrote to their 'mutual friend' Hooker, 'I have
grumbled a bit in my answer to him' (Lyell) 'at his _always_ classing my
book as a modification of Lamarck's, which it is no more than any author
who did not believe in the immutability of species[90].' In this case,
as is so frequently seen in the writings of Darwin, it is evident that
he attaches infinitely less importance to the establishment of the
_fact_ of the evolution of species, than to the demonstration of a
possible _mode of origin_ of that evolution. But that later in life
Darwin came to take a more indulgent view of the result of Lamarck's
labours is shown by a passage in his 'Historical Sketch' prefixed to the
_Origin_, in 1866. Lamarck, he says, 'first did the eminent service of
arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic