I have searched Evolution literature in vain for any
refutation of the Erasmus Darwinian system (for this is what Lamarck's
hypothesis really is), which need make the defenders of that system at
all uneasy. The best attempt at an answer to Erasmus Darwin that has yet
been made is Paley's Natural Theology, which was throughout obviously
written to meet Buffon and the Zoonomia. It is the manner of theologians
to say that such and such an objection "has been refuted over and over
again," without at the same time telling us when and where; it is to be
regretted that Mr. Wallace has here taken a leaf out of the theologians'
book. His statement is one which will not pass muster with those whom
public opinion is sure in the end to follow.
Did Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, "repeatedly and easily refute"
Lamarck's hypothesis in his brilliant article in the _Leader_, March 20,
1852? On the contrary, that article is expressly directed against those
"who cavalierly reject the hypothesis of Lamarck and his followers." This
article was written six years before the words last quoted from Mr.
Wallace; how absolutely, however, does the word "cavalierly" apply to
them!
Does Isidore Geoffrey, again, bear Mr. Wallace's assertion out better? In
1859--that is to say but a short time after Mr. Wallace had written--he
wrote as follows:--
"Such was the language which Lamarck heard during his protracted old
age, saddened alike by the weight of years and blindness; this was
what people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet barely
closed, and what indeed they are still saying--commonly too without
any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at
secondhand bad caricatures of his teaching.
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