stood by most men, and for fifty years was not spoken of at
all. Cuvier, Lamarck's greatest opponent, in his _Report on the
Progress of Natural Science_, in which the most unimportant
anatomical investigations are enumerated, does not devote a single
word to this work, which forms an epoch in science. Goethe, also,
who took such a lively interest in the French nature-philosophy and
in the 'thoughts of kindred minds beyond the Rhine,' nowhere
mentions Lamarck, and does not seem to have known the _Philosophie
Zoologique_ at all."

Again in 1882 Haeckel writes:[55]

"We regard it as a truly tragic fact that the _Philosophie
Zoologique_ of Lamarck, one of the greatest productions of the great
literary period of the beginning of our century, received at first
only the slightest notice, and within a few years became wholly
forgotten.... Not until fully fifty years later, when Darwin
breathed new life into the transformation views founded therein, was
the buried treasure again recovered, and we cannot refrain from
regarding it as the most complete presentation of the development
theory before Darwin.

"While Lamarck clearly expressed all the essential fundamental ideas
of our present doctrine of descent; and excites our admiration at
the depth of his morphological knowledge, he none the less surprises
us by the prophetic (_vorausschauende_) clearness of his
physiological conceptions."

In his views on life, the nature of the will and reason, and other
subjects, Haeckel declares that Lamarck was far above most of his
contemporaries, and that he sketched out a programme of the biology of
the future which was not carried out until our day.

J. Victor Carus[56] also claims for Lamarck "the lasting merit of having
been the first to have placed the theory (of descent) on a scientific
foundation."

The best, most catholic, and just exposition of Lamarck's views, and
which is still worth reading, is that by Lyell Chapters XXXIV.-XXXVI. of
his _Principles of Geology_, 1830, and though at that time one would not
look for an acceptance of views which then seemed extraordinary and,
indeed, far-fetched, Lyell had no words of satire and ridicule, only a
calm, able statement and discussion of his principles. Indeed, it is
well known that when, in after years, his friend Charles Darwin
published his views, Lyell expressed some leaning towards the older
speculations of Lamarck.

Lyell's opi