Origin of Species Variorum

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE RECENT PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. ↑

I WILL here .. give a brief, but imperfect, sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. The great majority of naturalists believe that species are immutable productions, and have been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, believe that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical writers, ∗ the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon. ↑ 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, in 1815, in the Introduction to his 'Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertèbres.' In these works he upholds 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