ss of detail than Dr. Darwin had done,
but perhaps with a somewhat less nice sense of some important points.
Till his death, in 1831, Lamarck, as far as age and blindness would
permit, continued to devote himself to the exposition of the theory of
descent with modification.

IV. A more distinct perception of the unity of parents and offspring,
with a bolder reference of the facts of heredity (whether of structure
or instinct), to memory pure and simple; a clearer perception of the
consequences that follow from the survival of the fittest, and a just
view of the relation in which those consequences stand to "the
circumstance-suiting" power of animals and plants; a reference of the
variations whose accumulation results in species, to the volition of the
animal or plant which varies, and perhaps a dawning perception that all
adaptations of structure to need must therefore be considered as
"purposive."

This must be connected with Mr. Matthew's work on 'Naval Timber and
Arboriculture,' which appeared in 1831. The remarks which it contains in
reference to evolution are confined to an appendix, but when brought
together, as by Mr. Matthew himself, in the 'Gardeners' Chronicle' for
April 7, 1860, they form one of the most perfect yet succinct
expositions of the theory of evolution that I have ever seen. I shall
therefore give them in full.[28] This book was well received, and was
reviewed in the 'Quarterly Review,'[29] but seems to have been valued
rather for its views on naval timber than on evolution. Mr. Matthew's
merit lies in a just appreciation of the importance of each one of the
principal ideas which must be present in combination before we can have
a correct conception of evolution, and of their bearings upon one
another. In his scheme of evolution I find each part kept in due
subordination to the others, so that the whole theory becomes more
coherent and better articulated than I have elsewhere found it; but I do
not detect any important addition to the ideas which Dr. Darwin and
Lamarck had insisted upon.

I pass over the 'Vestiges of Creation,' which should be mentioned only
as having, as Mr. Charles Darwin truly says, "done excellent service in
this country, in calling attention to this subject, in removing
prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of
analogous views."[30] The work neither made any addition to ideas which
had been long familiar, nor arranged old ones in a satisfactory manner