), the first author who in modern times has treated it in a
scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at
different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the
transformation of species, I need not here enter on details.
Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much
attention. This justly celebrated naturalist first published his views in
1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his "Philosophie Zoologique", and
subsequently, 1815, in the Introduction to his "Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans
Vertebres". In these works he up holds the doctrine that all species,
including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent
service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the
organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and
not of miraculous interposition. Lamarck seems to have been chiefly led to
his conclusion on the gradual change of species, by the difficulty of
distinguishing species and varieties, by the almost perfect gradation of
forms in certain groups, and by the analogy of domestic productions. With
respect to the means of modification, he attributed something to the direct
action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing of
already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects
of habit. To this latter agency he seems to attribute all the beautiful
adaptations in nature; such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on
the branches of trees.
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