attempts to demolish. But attempts are being made in other quarters,
especially among the Lamarckians, to build up an opposition theory.

Lamarckism and Neo-Lamarckism.

The "Lamarckian" view as opposed to the Darwinian continues to hold its
own, and indeed is more ardently supported than ever. On this view,
evolution has been accomplished not by a laborious selection of the best
which chanced to present itself--a selection in relation to which organisms
remained passive, but rather through the exertions of the organisms
themselves. It has been especially through the use and exercise of the
various organs in response to the requirements of life, through the
increased exercise of physical and mental functions, that the organism has
adapted itself more diversely and more fully to the conditions of its
life. What one generation acquired in differentiation of structure, in
capacities and habits, through its own exertions, it handed on to the
next. By cumulative inheritance there ultimately arose the fixed specific
characters, and the diversity and progressive gradations of organisms have
gone hand in hand with an ever increasing activity. And as with the
physical so it has been with the mental. Through continual use and
exercise of the functions their capacity has been increased and modified.
Through the frequent repetition of voluntary actions necessary to life the
habitual use of them has come about. Habits that have become fixed are
correlated with habitual psychical predispositions. These, gradually
handed on by inheritance to the descendants, have resulted in the
marvellous instincts of animals. Instinct is inherited habit that has
become fixed. Corresponding to this there is on the other hand the
recognition--in theory at least--that the disuse of an organ, the
non-exercising of a function leads to degeneration of structure and so
co-operates in bringing about a gradual but persistent modification of the
features and constitution of organisms.

These views, which have grown out of Lamarck's fundamental ideas
("Philosophie zoologique," 1809) are now usually associated with the
theory advanced chiefly by Etienne Geoffrey St. Hilaire ("Philosophie
zoologique," 1830), the opponent of Cuvier, and the ally of Goethe, of the
direct influence of the _monde ambiant_. The "surrounding world," the
influences of climate, of locality, of the weather, of nutrition, of
temperature, of the salinity of the water, of the moi